Diana of the Rainbow Valley
by Bathsheba Blythe
Summary: What happens to Diana Blythe after the end of the War? Will she fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher at the Glen school? Will she find the love of her life? This is the story which will answer those and many more different questions about the red-headed Di.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter I**

"April is the month made for springtime." Diana Blythe announced as she looked out of the window of her room, looking with bright, shining eyes at the Rainbow Valley glancing straight back at her.

It was a delightful morning, full of dew in the air and sun coming through the clouds which seemed entirely white. Diana, or rather Di, always liked to wake up early and watch how the sun appears on the horizon and she especially enjoyed waking up on this particular day in the middle of April 1922. This day was special, as it was marking the first anniversary of Shirley's marriage to Una. Di sighed in delight, remembering this magical day which always brought so many sweet memories into her mind. How radiating and angelic Una looked while wearing her mother's old wedding dress and with this timid smile crossing her thin lips. And Shirley, oh Shirley certainly wasn't shy on that day, instead he danced, he _waltzed_ with his wife for the whole afternoon.

Di giggled, remembering how Shirley and Una laughed quietly together when they stepped on Faith's feet while dancing in the garden of the manse. Di sighed again, this time dreamily, while putting her hand on her chest. Faith and Jem were married for three years already and had two twin boys, Merry and Walt, and now Faith was expecting their third child. "When will _I_ find a love like my brothers and sisters found?" she questioned herself.

Her own twin, Nan, was married to Jerry for three years already. They had a wee boy John, called by everyone Jake, who was now just one year old. And Nan was expecting her second baby and was simply swimming in happiness and love, the type of love Di hadn't discovered yet. Then it was her baby-sister Rilla, who certainly couldn't be called a 'baby' anymore with two boys, two and one year old, in each of her arms and a caring husband looking at her with adoration in his eyes. Even Mary Vance of the old was a happy wife of Miller Douglas for over three years, cradling her little sweet Marshall to her breast and smoothing her growing stomach.

She was the bachelor of the family, she knew it perfectly well, and she didn't mind it, not really. It was nice to still have time for having a family, for having her own home. Besides, she loved taking care of her nephews, she loved them just as if they were her own little boys. Di enjoyed her life as it was, the peaceful life, as peaceful as the life of a private teacher can be, that is. Oh, how much she adored teaching! Di never knew how much she would love it until she finished her first lesson. But as much as she loved giving private lessons, she decided on taking up another step and so she was patiently waiting for the reply from Glen school informing her whether whe will or will not be able to teach there as the teacher of the "Queen's group".

Di shook her head, ending the line of thoughts in her head and made her way towards her wardrobe. She picked out her much beloved navy-blue suit with white edges around her V-neck collar and as soon as she put it on, her eyes turned to the clock hanging on the wall. She gasped suddenly and shut the door of her wardrobe quite quickly, running downstairs, straight to the Ingleside's kitchen.

Susan Baker was preparing a plate full of her delicious pancakes as Di's parents, Gilbert and Anne, were chatting with each other while sitting around the table. They all looked at Di when she entered the room and smiles appeared on their faces. "Good morning to you, darling." Anne said to her daughter sweetly.

"Good morning everyone." Di said and grinned at her parents "Am I late for breakfast?" she asked sheepishly.

"I don't suppose there is a proper time for breakfast in this house anymore, Di dear." Susan said briskly and put down the plate with pancakes on the table in front of Di "Now sit down, and eat, you have a full day ahead of you, and young people need to get enough energy in the morning, and _that_ you may tie to." she said and went back to the kettle again.

Di obeyed dear old Susan and ate her breakfast quickly. She kept thinking about this beautiful day and oh, and this exciting day that just awoke. She intended on waking up at seven and instead it was _eleven_ already. "Thank God, it's Saturday." she thought as she swallowed the last piece of a pancake.

"I think that the postman just crossed our road." Dr Blythe said and put down his newspaper on the table. He looked at his daughter and winked at her knowingly "I'll get it, Di." he said and stood up from his chair.

Di clasped her hands together and looked at the ceiling. Anne chuckled quietly and put her hand on Di's shaking one "You'll be fine, darling, you'll see." she whispered to her and Di smiled, releasing a small sigh. Gilbert came back to the kitchen with a bunch of letters in his hands. Without a word he sat down in his chair again and handed over one small letter into Di's pale hands. She took it slowly from him and everyone, even Susan, looked at her with interest and excitement in their eyes.

Di tore the envelope apart slowly and unfolded the piece of paper. Her eyes quickly followed the writing on it and her cheeks flushed with red, it even seemed that her own red hair turned even redder than it was already. "I got it." Di whispered and a wide smile appeared on her face "I got a _job_!" she repeated again and stood up to kiss her Mother, Father and Susan on the cheek, still holding onto the letter in her hand.

"I can't say I'm surprised, Di." Anne said with pride filling up her grey eyes. Gilbert took her hand in his and looked at his daughter with the same expression in his hazel eyes.

"Now I know that this day can't be anything else _but_ special!" Di exclaimed and ran upstairs to her room, leaving the three adults laughing together.

* * *

The little white house, called the Farm House, was filled up with all the Blythes, Merediths and Fords that evening.

Una and Shirley invited only their family (Mary Vance, or rather Mary Douglas came too of course), but this meant around twenty people coming to a dinner to the Farm House. Ever since the two of them married, exactly a year earlier, they became less shy and timid than they once were. Di supposed that it was because of the fact that they had each other, and were never on their own.

Una was a splendid housewife, the Farm House was always cleaned and shiny, all of the windows were transparent, and the shelves glistened and were filled with books. Shirley was, to nobody's surprise, a wonderful husband, always standing on the top of his head to make his sweet wife laugh. Di could look at them the whole day, they were her "favourite" couple. It was such a pleasant picture, Una looking at her husband from time to time, as if she was checking if he's really there, and Shirley doing exactly the same thing, and when they eyes met, they would smile, and _oh_ , in such a delightful manner!

It was like a dream to Di, a hope even, so that she, one day, would also find this someone who would look at her like Shirley looked at Una. She was so happy for the two of them to find this one special kind of love with one another, and although she didn't know the whole details of their story, she would learn about them soon enough.

The dinner was delightful, a mixture of cookings from Una, Susan and Rosemary was the best combination of food that can ever be prepared for a party, especially for such an exciting occassion as this one. Everyone chatted around the table, all the children were passed from arms to arms, giggling the whole time. The oldest Gilly, with his black curls all over his head and shiny grey eyes, a complete image if his proud father, Ken, was certainly the most energetic of his boys-cousins. He was running around the table, talking in half-English and half-Gilish, making everyone laugh. His younger brother Blythe, was mostly held by his grandmother, as he was her favourite and that's because he was an exact image of Walter when he was his age. Blythe was a very quiet baby but very interested in the world around him, and so he really enjoyed when Anne was whispering into his ear some words reserved just for him to hear.

Then it was Di's other oldest nephews; her brother Jem's twin boys called Walt and Merry. It was funny, but the twins, the next "Blythe-twins", were also not alike at all. Walt looked like Faith, had brown hair and brown eyes, never cried and always stayed calm, wheras his twin Merry was a total opposite. Merry had red hair, it was the first thing his grandmother said to him: "Oh, I'm _so_ sorry, you dear boy! My red hair will be the curse for all of my children's children!". He also had brown eyes, but brown like his father's, a bit darker than Faith's and Merry was just… 'merry', and as energetic as his cousin Gilly was.

Eventually there was a son of Di's own twin, Nan and her husband Jerry's. Jake looked like his father, "except for his broad forehead" as Nan insisted on adding. And Jake was a very calm child too, and always played with Mary Vance's boy Marshall.

Di looked around the table and sighed in delight. Her whole family sitting all together! Well, there was one person missing. Carl was missing. He was finishing his last year in Redmond, the Biology course. Di was always good chums with Carl, never a very good friend, but she hoped that they will become closer friends when he would come back from Redmond, now that the two of them were the bachelors of their families therefore not having any chores linked to having the family of their own, and also because they would work in the same Glen-school in September! Di gasped suddenly at the very thought. How splendid! _And_ exciting! Her cheeks flushed with colour as her mood lifted high up again.

"Di, are you happy about starting teaching in our old Glen's school?" Nan touched her twin's hand.

Di turned her head towards her sister and smiled "Of course I am," she replied merrily "-it's my dream coming true, teaching but teaching _professionally_ at school."

"But you will still be giving private lessons?" Rilla asked her older sister while bouncing her Gilly on her knee.

"Yes, I will." Di answered proudly.

"Di, you really _are_ hard-working!" Rilla chuckled "I don't know if I could ever endure working as both a teacher at school _and_ a private teacher."

"If you would love the profession of a teacher like I do, you definitely would endure it." Di replied with a smile, and patted Gilly's black curls on his small head "Faith, when is Carl coming back to Glen?" Di asked her sister-in-law who was sitting across the table.

"Oh, he's coming back in the first days of July, why?" she asked her with a raised funny brow.

"I wanted to talk with him about our teaching which will start in September." Di replied "I'm really glad that he will be there for me when my spirits would fall." she grinned lightly.

Jem, sitting next to his wife, smiled at her tenderly "Your spirits _won't_ fall, Di." he said to her decidedly.

"Oh, Jem, who knows?" Di said to her brother and then chuckled when Merry fell on his bottom and started laughing as loud as a child can laugh. Everyone looked at the dear red-headed boy and couldn't help but to laugh as well.

* * *

"It was a lovely party, wasn't it, dear?" Anne asked her daughter when she, Di, Gilbert and Susan reached Ingleside again. It was already dark outside, and the sky was painted with black, unravelling the beautiful round shining moon in the very middle of it. Gilbert was gone to the patient who called on him a few minutes earlier and Susan with her "Mrs Doctor dear" and "Di dear" were all in the hallway, taking off their coats and hats.

"It was." Di answered with a sleepy smile "I would say that it was the very first day of spring. It felt so fresh, so new."

Anne smiled at her daughter and touched her cheek tenderly "Di, maybe you should become a writer?" she said so suddenly that the two of them laughed together and Susan turned her head swiftly towards them.

"A _writer_!" she frowned and shook her head "Mrs Doctor dear, maybe we all _should_ go to bed, we are so tired after today."

Anne chuckled "Susan you're so polite, and I do know that by "we" you mean "you". But I guess you're right after all." she turned to Di and kissed her cheek "Have a good night's sleep darling. And may you dream the sweetest of dreams." she winked at her and Di kissed her mother's cheek back.

"There are too many for me to dream about in just _one_ night's sleep!" she laughed and went upstairs, with the hope that the night will last long enough so that she could dream and dream _and_ dream her sweetest of dreams after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter II**

In early May, Faith had a little girl whom she and Jem called Julia Una Blythe. "Julia" as it means 'youthful', and "Una" for Faith's dear baby-sister of course. Julia turned out to be the sweetest baby of the new generation. "And the very _first_ girl!" Jem said proudly while holding a small bundle of joy in his arms. Julia's hair was just as red as her father's hair was, she had eight perfect frecles on her nose and she inherited Jem's hazel-eyes. Her Grandmother Anne, looked down on her first granddaughter and said: "I am dreadfully sorry dearest Julia, for your hair _and_ frecles. But I do think that you are _very_ sweet indeed." she kissed Julia's chubby hand "And I promise you, I will _never_ think that "Julienne" is a nicer name than "Julia", like I once did."

Faith had to stay in bed for the next month and so Di volunteered to come everyday for a few hours and help her out with the children, cleaning and cooking. Di loved coming to the House on the Hill, it always seemed so big, and the atmosphere inside was so homey and just nice. Di humed while cleaning the kitchen, polishing the floor, wiping the windows and she sang and shouted like a little girl herself when she was playing with the naughty Merry and funny Walt. She thought that it must be so nice to have a home of her own, to have a family of her own. She smiled whenever this splendid thought crossed her mind, or whenever she was kissing Merry on the cheek, Walt on the forehead or Julia's wee hand.

"Isn't she just the sweetest baby you have ever seen, Di?" Faith said tenderly when she cradled her little girl to her breast. At the end of each day, Di was going upstairs with the boys and talked with Faith, as they waited for Jem to come back from work. And so Did was doing exactly that on one afternoon, two weeks after Julia's birth.

Di smiled at her sister-in-law "I think that all the newborn children are the sweetest." she replied and tickled Walt who was looking with interest at his small sister.

Faith smiled at Di and looked down at the bundle in her arms with shining eyes "You are just right about that, Di." she said and she jumped suddenly "Well, there's Jem coming home now. Di, I won't thank you enough for coming everyday and helping me." she touched Di's hand gently.

"Faith, really, there's nothing to be thankful for." she replied joyfully and kissed her on the cheek "I absolutely love all of your kiddies and besides, I know that I would get bored at home otherwise." she winked at her and Faith chuckled.

But Di wasn't bored when Faith didn't need her help anymore. She was reading books, sometimes taking up her own pen and trying to write something of her own, she was visiting each of her siblings regularly, and playing with her nephews and little Julia whenever she could visit them.

May quickly turned into June, and in the second week, a tall young man started walking towards Ingleside, straight from the Manse where he left all of his luggage. It was a handsome young man, with brown hair and golden glints shining through it, pointy chin, and dark-blue eyes. His right eye was blind but it didn't bother him much, as long as he could still watch all the bugs and beatles between the grass, he was fine.

Di was alone at Ingleside as her Father was on the call and Mother with Susan were visiting Miss Cornelia, or rather as Susan Baker would call her: "Mrs Marshall Elliott". Therefore Di didn't expect anyone to knock on the door in at least another two or three hours. But someone _did_ knock and she jumped from her seat asif someone pinched her. Who could it be? she thought while she was putting down "Jane Eyre" on the table beside her. She didn't want to stop reading, she felt almost annoyed that someone was at the front door and she had to let this person in.

But she wasn't annoyed at all when she saw _who_ was waiting outside Ingleside "Carl Meredith!" she gasped and threw her arms around his neck "We didn't expect you until Saturday!" she said and kissed his cheek lightly.

Carl smiled at her warmly and gave a beautiful bouquet of roses straight into her hands "I made up my mind on making you all a surprise." he replied happily.

Di took the bouquet in her hands and hid her entire face into it "They're beautiful, Carl." she said and then looked at him seriously "Are you sure there aren't any bugs in them?" she asked him with a raised brow.

Carl chuckled and patted her hand "I checked. _Twice_." he said and it was Di's turn to let out a small laugh.

"Come on in, Carl." Di said and opened the door wider "It's just me at Ingleside at the moment, but I'm sure that Susan wouldn't mind if we would eat some of her apple-pie…" she started but Carl interjected her.

"Actually," he said "-I thought that we could go for a walk. It's such a nice weather outside, it's a sin to waste it." he grinned at her.

Di put the flowers aside and stepped closer to Carl "Let's go then." she said decidedly. The weather _was_ utterly beautiful. The sun was shining high on the sky and on all the trees down in Rainbow Valley made everything around to glow in daylight, just like glasses full of water.

Di and Carl talked and talked, talked and talked, and they completely forgot about the world around them. That's how it is when two friends don't see each other for a long time, and when they finally meet, there's nothing more interesting nor more important than the fact that they have each other. Di forgot that she was wearing her very simple and old grey day-dress and a casual straw hat on her red locks, normally she would be really embarrassed to walk around people, or just _men_ , in this kind of fashion. However she knew that Carl was her special friend, and she could never feel embarrassed next to him. But even though she wore a grey and dull dress and a simple straw hat on her head, she could outshine all of the daylight and the sun itself could be jealous of her rosy cheeks and perfect complexion.

Carl looked at her with astonishement, he was sure that he had never seen a girl, a woman, as beautiful as Di was at that very moment. He always considered her as a beauty but only on that day he stopped 'considering' but he _knew_ that she was a beauty. Carl himself looked very handsome with his blonde curls shining through his brown hair whenever the sun shone down on him. He was quite tall and Di always had to put up her head up high to face him when she or he talked.

"When I heard that you got a placement in our Glen school, I could jump up and down, I was so happy." Carl said to Di gaily as the two of them strolled down the Rainbow Valley "We will both teach at the same school! Isn't this exciting?"

Di chuckled at his sudden wave of excitement "Certainly so, dear Carl!" Di replied in the excatly the same excited tone, making Carl to laugh "I'm sure that we _will_ be able to get through the tempers of the students, but we will be able to do that even more so now that we will have each other." she said.

"That's excatly what I'm talking about." Carl agreed with a smile and opened his mouth to say something more but there was Susan Baker who waved at them nervously with a towel in her hand. She was looking out of the window and her face was perfectly red from all the cooking she started doing in the kitchen.

"Carl and _Diana_! Come quickly or you will miss dinner, you two!" she shouted out.

Di and Carl laughed together and ran towards the Ingleside "For how long have we been talking then?" Di asked him.

"I don't know, Di, but that was enough to make Susan angry at us." he replied and the two of them chuckled while entering the house. "Dear Susan, I'm afraid I will have to go back home for dinner, Mother Rosemary will be disappointed if she would hear that I ate my first dinner after coming back from Redmond, at Ingleside and not at the Manse." Carl said kindly to the energetic Susan.

Susan turned to him and sighed helplessly "I thought you would say that." she said and then patted his cheek "But it's good to have you back." she told him warmly and Carl smiled at her.

Di walked to the door with Carl and he squeezed her hand before putting on his hat "It really is good to be home, Di!" he said to her.

"It really is." she agreed with him and with another grin, he exited the hall, whistling while walking down the lane in the direction of the Manse.

Di chuckled and closed the door. Before she returned to the kitchen, the mirror hanging on the wall just beside her caught Di's attention. She turned to face it and she gasped in horror "Good grief, how _awful_ I looked like while welcoming my friend back from Redmond!" she put her hands on her cheeks dramatically and quickly took off her straw hat angrily, her cheeks flushing with scarlet "Di, you _inappropriate_ future-teacher!" she scowled at herself and walked quickly back into the kitchen.

* * *

"The most delightful thing happened today." Di wrote in her diary at the beginning of July "Mother, Father, Susan and I were all invited, along with our entire family, to the House of Dreams for a family dinner.

"I simply _love_ our family meetings, everyone talks and the children run around and laugh and randomly pat you on the shoulder and say a funny little thing which for them is nothing but serious. Just today, Gilly came up to me and and sat straight on my lap with a funny, cheeky expression crossing his dear face. "What are you doing, Gilly?" I whispered into his ear and he turned back to face me, then he put his little hands around his mouth and whispered back: "I'm running away from Thuthan." I tried my best not to laugh and then I asked him why he's running away from Susan for. "She wanth to give me more pie and I _can't_ eat any more." he whispered back again and then Susan spotted him and shouted out his name, making Gil to jump back on the floor and start screaming and running away to the living room.

"But there, I was supposed to say what delightful thing happened today. At the dinner, Rilla announced that she is expecting a baby. We are all extremely happy for her, this _baby_ -sister of mine! I still can't quite beleive that she is my younger sister, and that she's married and with a _third_ baby on the way! And then there's me, Diana Blythe, twenty seven and _still_ aging, with no plans on getting married probably till the rest of her life. But there, I am whining again. I am happy as I am, sometimes I even thank God that I don't have any husband to take care of! How many things one has to think about when one's married… No, that is _not_ me entirely.

"When Rilla announced that she is to be a mother again, Una suddenly started laughing and when Rilla asked her why she's laughing, Una simply said that she was about to announce that _she_ is expecting a baby too! I'm sure now that Rilla and Una will be always by each other's sides for the rest of their pregnancies, I'm quite positive about that. And I'm thrilled that I will become an auntie once again. Now, I have to get all the strength to find time to start knitting some of those baby clothes for my baby-sister and my sister-in-law.

"It is really quite hard for me to believe that September is almost here and that I will start teaching in seven weeks. I am getting nervous now, although I do tell everyone that I'm not nervous at all. But I think that Mother knows that I am, she gives me _those_ looks that say everything they have to say to make me realise that she knows me better than I know myself.

"I'm afraid that the students in my class will be naughty, or not really interested in learning anything at all. I think that I'm scared because I don't know what the "teaching adventure" like Father called it, will turn out to be like for me.

"But really, it is ever so good that Carl is here, and that I can talk with him about my fears whenever I like. I can hardly believe what amount of patience he posses towards me. I think that Carl is much more relaxed and optimistic than I am. He says that he is not nervous at all, and that he is getting more and more excited for the first day of school. "It's weird though, isn't it Di," he said to me yesterday when we took a walk in Rainbow Valley "-that I am more excited about going to school now when I'm twenty five, than when I was a fifteen year old!".

"I have to go now, I can hear Susan opening the door and this means that Mary Vance, I apologise, _Mrs_ Douglas came for a tea with her little sweet Marshall, to show me her newest baby clothes which she had been knitting this entire week for her upcoming new arrival.

"I shall go now, and I _will_ try not to break another cup (not in front of _Mary_ at least!).

"Yours,

"Di Blythe"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter III**

On the sunny morning in the middle of August, Di was woken up by her glowing Mother who whispered into her ear some tender words full of excitement and pride. Even if Anne wouldn't whisper into her daughter's ear, Di would know why her Mother had this special look in her grey eyes.

Di jumped out of her bed, put on the very first thing her hands found in the wardrobe, took the toast in her hand and flew out of Ingleside with Anne and Susan by her side. They reached the house of Nan and Jerry in less than fifteen minutes and almost as soon as they reached it, tired but ecstatic Jerry opened the door in front of them. Anne put her arms around her son-in-law and kissed him on the cheek. "How is she, Jerry?" she asked him half-worriedly, half-happily "And the baby?"

Before Jerry could open his mouth, Gilbert put his arm around Anne's shoulder and kissed her forehead "Well, Anne-girl, we have a second granddaughter." he told her with a smile on his lips and Anne gasped with happiness and kissed her husband's cheek.

Di squaked in joy and threw her arms around Jerry's neck as well "Oh, Jerry!" she exclaimed "Can we go and see her?" she asked him excitedly.

Jerry chuckled at her reaction "Yes, I insist you on telling me your opinion on _our_ daughter." he answered and Di, Anne and Susan almost _ran_ upstairs. In the bedroom, there wasn't just Nan inside, there were also her parents-in-law, Rosemary and John Meredith, and her own son, Jake, looking at the bundle in her arms with interest.

"Well, I must say that I've seen you in a better form, dear sister." Di told her twin when she stepped near her, with a smile crossing her lips and tears coming up to her eyes.

Nan was all pale, and she had dark circles undearneath her eyes from the sleepless night, her brown locks were all over her pillow and she seemed almost as fragile as the baby she was holding. But her eyes spoke by themselves, they were almost as alive as she was, and just as joyful and just as content. "Oh, Di!" Nan took off her eyes from the bundle she was holding and took her twin's hand in a tight grasp "I am simply _paralysed_ with happiness!" she breathed out with a small gasp.

Anne sat down by her daughter's side and kissed the forehead of the little girl her daughter was holding "Nan, darling, you did wonderful." she told her with pride and warm tears strolling down her cheeks.

Nan put her hand on her mother's hand and squeezed it gently "Mother, just look at her." she said and looked back at the bundle of joy she held in her loving, motherly arms. The baby was certainly one of the sweetest babies Di had ever seen. She had Nan's brown curls and red lips, but she had black eyes of Jerry's. She was a true beauty and Di knew that she would grow up to be one of the prettiest girls in Glen St Mary. "Isn't she beautiful?" Nan asked the people around her.

"She certainly _does_ have pretty ears, Nan dear." Susan added her bit, and although she tried hard not to let out a small cry of her own, her voice trembled a little and Nan looked at her with watery eyes.

"She is _all_ pretty, Susan." she replied and kissed the baby's wee hand and everyone agreed with her.

"But Nan and Jerry _still_ haven't decided on a name." Rosemary said as she took a step nearer and put her hand on Anne's shoulder, and the two women looked at each other knowingly.

"Why ever not, Nan?" Di asked her twin with surprise as she also sat down on the nearest chair with Jake sitting on her lap.

"I think that we _do_ have a name." Jerry, who just came into the room with Gilbert, announced and smiled at his wife and his daughter lovingly.

Nan smiled back at him "Yes, we just wanted to wait for all of you to arrive." she told her family and sighed with delight "This beautiful baby-girl is called Anna Rosemary Meredith." she declared and the two grandmothers looked at each other with with pride and kissed both the new mother and the little baby in her arms.

"And may God bless her." John said and patted his son on the shoulder, and to everyone's surprise his own eyes filled up with fresh tears.

* * *

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Carl asked Di, while they walked together down the Rainbow Valley, on the very last day of August. It was a gloomy day, the sun was trying its best to get through the grey clouds filling up the sky, but somehow it was too weak to do it. It seemed as if God himself was wistful about the summer slowly turning into autumn again.

But Rainbow Valley had the charm of its own and neither Di nor Carl could feel the gloominess of the world while they walked near the green trees and even greener grass. "I prepared the clothes I will wear, and the books I will take and what introduction I will make for my class." Di replied, counting each thing she said as if to reassure herself that she really _was_ ready for tomorrow.

Carl looked at Di with a raised brow "You're not regretting taking up the role of a teacher, are you?" he asked her.

Di shook her head quickly "No, of course not." she said "But it just hit me that it _is_ tomorrow." she sighed helpelssly and Carl nudged her on the side.

"Come on Di," he told her "-you know you'll be fine."

"I shall try to think so." she replied and then when she looked at him again, she chuckled "Don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?" Carl chuckled too.

"Like I am a person you should feel sorry for." she said eventually.

"If this will make you feel any better, I will _not_ feel sorry for you, whatever happens tomorrow." he said decidedly.

"Thank you, I'd like that." she answered and they both laughed again "I imagine that you're prepared?" she asked him.

"Sure." he answered with a shrug.

"You prepared everything just today, didn't you?" she asked him with a funny look crossing her face.

Carl chuckled again " _Yes_." he replied and Di laughed as well "But it didn't take me very long, I rushed it all a _little_ bit as I was invited by Jerry for a dinner today, and so I had to prepare everything before that." he said.

"Carl, don't you think that baby Rose is beautiful?" Di asked him excitedly and put her arm in Carl's "She is a real lady, and I couldn't agree more with Nan to start calling her 'Rose' instead of 'Anna'."

"That's true, Rose is just the name for the baby girl of my brother." he said proudly "And she _is_ beautiful. But I must admit that Faith's and Jem's Julia is so different from Rose in looks, but she still is just _as_ pretty."

""Rose is a real 'rose' and Julia is a 'lavender', both of them are beauties although for different reasons". That's what Mother said about her granddaughters." Di said and then sighed "I can't believe that _my_ parents are grandparents."

Carl sighed too "Yes, I can't believe that mine are grandparents too." he agreed "It is such a weird thought, to think that all of my siblings are married and are parents, or like dear Una, a mother-to-be." he said and grinned at the thought of his baby-sister being a sweet little mother.

Di smiled too, as she was thinking about the exct same thing as Carl "It _is_ a weird thought, but a delightful one at the same time." she said "But _we_ , Carl, are starting our _careers_. That is what we are going to do and it counts for the most, for _now_ at least." she said decidedly and she smiled at him warmly.

Carl grinned at her "Is that what you want to do always? Teaching I mean?" he asked her.

Di humphed and crossed her arms "Well, I don't know." she replied earnestly "I do like the idea of me teaching children who can become someone important one day, but I don't know if that's what I _always_ want to do. And you, Carl? I bet you would prefer to be a biologist, _or_ a zoologist." she winked at him knowingly and Carl chuckled.

"I suppose you're right." he agreed with her "But I don't mind being a teacher for now, one has to start somewhere, and besides it's good to be near family."

Di smiled at him again and patted his arm gently "That's true, dear friend." and she suddenly gasped "Oh, no! I forgot!" she smoothed the sleeve of her jacket and touched her hat in hurry as if to check whether it was still on her head "I was supposed to go to Nan's for tea! Carl Meredith you are a true distraction to my plans!" she said to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek while he laughed merrily.

"I hope that I will continue on being your distraction." he answered mysteriously and squeezed her hand "Shall I meet you here at seven thirty tomorrow then?" he asked her.

"Yes, please, and don't you _dare_ not to come! On the first day of work!" she laughed and then squeezed his arm "I have to run now, Carl, I'll see you tomorrow!" and she indeed started running towards the house of her twin.

Carl watched her run and chuckled to himself while seeing her red locks flying in the air behind her "I wouldn't even try to disobey you." he murmured to himself and then laughed again, turned around and started whistling while slowly walking back to the Manse.

* * *

Dearest Diary,

I haven't written in here for two weeks now and it is almost October here. _But_ I have an excuse: I started my career as a teacher!

My first day at school was very stressful, I couldn't even sleep the night before. When I met Carl who was waiting for me in Rainbow Valley, I felt relieved but still, even though he really tried his best, he couldn't cheer me up so much. I could hardly smile at my students when I entered the classroom.

My "Queen's class" isn't actually that big, it's just about fifteen students and me in the classroom each day. All of the children are nice and eager to work and that's why I felt that a heavy stone from my heart was lifted up, but not entirely _yet_. Later, I was still nervous about not being able to remember my students' names. I was never good in remembering names but I made it somehow and by the end of the frst week I knew who was Jane and who was Tom.

It is all going well so far, I have all my lessons planned a week ahead and all of my pupils are ambitious and hardworking. I started giving out private lessons on Saturdays and Sundays so I _am_ quite tired. But I came to a conclusion that teaching _is_ something made for me, and I enjoy it enormously and so does Carl. He wasn't nervous at all, and he's enjoying teaching just as much as I do. He simply adores his students, especially the youngest ones who always stay after school to talk with him about snakes or crocodiles (as if Carl _was_ a real zoologist).

But I do have some time for myself, of _course_ I do. Privte lessons don't take me the whole weekend, just a third of it really. In my free time, I visit Nan and little Rose who is a "dear darling" for her father. Una and Rilla, like I suspected, spend most of their time together and I am always invited for their "knitting meetings" which remind me so much of my work for Red Cross during the War.

This reminds me, it will be the sixth anniversary of Walter's death next week, and I plan on spending this day as I always used to spend it, under the Tree Lovers in Rainbow Valley, reading the poems he wrote so long ago. I wonder if Walter would be a famous poet if he had lived. He probably would, I think, and who knows maybe he _too_ would be happily married with a bunch of children around him? The very thought brings tears into my eyes. It's been six years but it feels as if my dear brother died just yesterday. But, I know that even if he's not here physically, he is here spiritually. I could feel his presence when I was entering the school on my first day and I could almost hear him whispering in his kind tone: "It's alright, Di, you will be _just_ fine". He shows himself up everyhwere and I think that for each of us. But the past is in the past, and all I can do for him is to keep the promise that I made to Walter the day Father called me to tell me that my brother is dead; I will _never_ forget him.

The happy news is that Mary Vance (it seems that I can never picture her as just "Mary"), delivered a healthy baby girl whom she called, of course, Cornelia. Mary Vance is so over the moon that this time she had a little girl, that she simply carries the baby everywhere with her and shows her daughter whenever she can. The truth is that Cornelia _is_ very pretty with her blonde curls and blue eyes. Miss Cornelia beams with pride that "Mary, dearie" named her first daughter after her.

That's when my time for writing in this journal is up, as now I must head to the "knitting meeting" at the House of Dreams; Rilla invited me this evening, probably to show off the new baby-hat she was trying to make over this week.

Hopefully I'll be able to master the craft of knitting too, but I will _not_ promise any miracles!

Yours,

Di Blythe


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter IV**

"Una, you know that _I_ can make a tea for you." Di said when Una came into the living room of her very own Farm House with a tray in her hands and a light smile on her face.

"Oh, but I enjoy having guests in my own house and I love making tea for them, there's no problem Di." Una replied kindly and sat down in her chair next to the fireplace, putting her hand on her round stomach.

"Una, you are a real darling. But you musn't overwork yourself." Di told her decidedly, while sipping a tea from her cup.

Una waved her hand "I _really_ don't overwork." she answered in her warm and calm voice "Shirley wouldn't allow me anyway. Not ever." she giggled like a little girl.

Di laughed as well "I'm quite sure that you're right." she agreed with her "Are you ready for the baby's arrival then? It's not long now." she raised her brow and her eyes started to glow.

Una blushed a little and then touched her growing stomach tenderly "Yes, March isn't so far away from December, is it?" she said.

"I can hardly believe that it's the last day of November." Di shook her head "It seems that just yesterday I went down to Rainbow Valley and walked together with Carl to Glen school for our first day as teachers." she sighed deeply and then grinned at the memory.

"Talking of Carl," Una crossed her arms slowly and put her feet in front of her "-I am very glad that you and him are such good friends ever since the summer has started." she touched Di's arm gently.

Di smiled at her and touched her small hand in return "I am very glad too." she replied "Now with all of you, my closest friends, married and whirled into your own small worlds, Carl is just the person with whom I can easily talk just as much as I used to talk with let's say you, or Nan."

Una nodded and smiled at Di again "You know, I think that you even changed Carl a little." she said a bit shyly.

Di's brows furrowed in surprise "Really? How so? For me he's just the same as he always was." she said.

"Well, the truth is that Carl always liked you the most of all of us." Una admitted and grinned at her sister-in-law "Although he was always shy to say so, as he was afraid that we would all think that he's in _love_ with you. But now he just feels, he told me, that he has a friend he was always looking for." she smiled at Di radiantly, knowing that she was the happiness of her younger brother.

Di's eyes started to shine even more and she chuckled gladly "I am extremely joyful then, dearest Una!" she said to her "I've never thought that the 'staying in the corner and looking for bugs in the trees' Carl always liked me so much." she clasped her hands together "But I couldn't be more glad to have him as my friend. He's such a good friend _and_ a collegue."

"To be honest I was quite afraid that he wouldn't find a friend, once he would come back from Redmond back to Glen." Una continued as she rocked herself in the chair "You know Carl, he's friendly, warm and kind but when it comes to making friends, he isn't the bravest one."

"Yes, but believe it or not, I'm quite similar." Di replied and then chuckled "Don't look so surprised, Una, that's true. I _am_ open and friendly, but it's hard for me to really find someone who _could_ be my kindred spirit, and Carl really is one of those special people who are close to my heart." she grinned at her sister-in-law who smiled back at her.

"Yes, it's _good_ that you two have each other." Una agreed and Di's brows furrowed slightly as Una's voice sounded as if she was somewhere completely elsewhere with her thoughts.

* * *

Christmas 1922 came in a sound of a soft whisper, with the forever cold yet somehow burning snow lying everywhere and a freezeing wind blowing through everything it could reach. Ingleside was bombarded with people, and Susan's shoutings and fast movements around the kitchen with the helping "Mrs Dr dear", "Di dear", and Rosemary Meredith, could be heard in the whole house.

Everyone else was waiting for them in the living room, watching over the screaming kidlets of brown, black and red hair. Eventually Susan and her cooks came into the room with full trays of food in their hands and they invited everyone to the Christmas table.

Di looked around her while they all talked, joked and ate, having the time of their lives for which everyone was waiting for during the dark years of the war and sometimes failed in thinking that such wonderful day would come one day, and it _did_.

Di smiled, who would have thought that one can love their family so much? Each person around that Christams table was so close to everyone's hearts as if they knew each other since the beginning of time. Nan sat next to Di and Di was glad, she and her twin used to be the closest of friends but when Nan married Jerry and moved away from Ingleside and later became a mother, Di felt that she had been isolated from her dearest sister after all. She knew, on the day of Nan's wedding that their sisterhood would never be the same, simply because they wouldn't have enough time for each other as much as they once had. But nonetheless when they _did_ talk, and outtalked gossips, their dreams, fears and doubts, they were as close as they had never been before.

It was so nice to have such a big family! How could Mother, Di thought to herself, live all of those thirteen years of her life without any family of her own? Now, she looked over at her red-headed Mother, she was smiling and holding each of grandchildren with tenderness and love swimming in her grey eyes, while being surrounded by her huge family.

After dinner, Faith stood up from her chair with a sleepy Julia in her arms in order to go upstairs to put her into her cot and to allow her to sleep. Di touched Faith's arm gently and whispered to her "I can go and put her to bed, Faith."

Faith smiled warmly and squeezed Di's hand "You darling," she said "- I would be very grateful." and Di slowly took Julia in her own arms and after smiling back at Faith reassuringly, she started walking upstairs to the room where the "reserve cots" were standing, and therefore she came into to the old room of Rilla.

Di loved putting her little nephews and nieces to bed, they looked like real angels when their heads were slowly going to the front and to the back and then to the front again and to the back once more, and with their eyes closing slowly as if they weighed like stones. Di held baby Julia and kissed her sleepy head, making her to look at Di with her hazel-eyes. Julia smiled at Di and giggled "What a happy baby you are aren't you, you little baby-girl?" Di whispered to her, slowly closing the door of the room, not to disturb the peacefulness and angelic atmosphere she entered.

Di laid Julia down in her arms so that her head was resting on Di's arm and she could rock her until the baby closed her eyes. A few seconds after Julia entered the world of dreams, and her small crimson lips slightly parted, a door opened noiselessly and Carl appeared in front of Di. "Susan wanted to say that she is waiting for you to serve the dessert." he whispered while sitting next to Di.

She smiled, still looking at the baby's sleeping face "I'll be back in a second." she whsipered and rocked the baby even though Julia was fast asleep already.

Carl sighed softly and grinned at the picture appearing in front of him. Di was a natural with small children, he hadn't noticed it before. And it seemed to him that Di looked as if she was holding a child of her own, with Julia whose fluffy locks spreading across her tiny head were just as red as Di's own hair.

"She's so sweet." Carl whispered and touched Julia's small hand "And so small, I'm always afraid that I will drop such a tiny baby while holding it."

Di looked at Carl finally and smiled wider "You wouldn't Carl." she said to him softly "And I agree, Julia really _is_ sweet." she looked back at Julia and then raised from the chair to put her down to her bassinet but turned to Carl instead "Come on, be brave and put her to the cot." she winked at him and Carl looked at her blankly.

"I will try." he said eventually and took Julia very carefully in his arms "Good Lord, she's _really_ small." he said and Di chuckled at his serious face. Carl put Julia in the cot as slowly as a man could possibly do it and then turned to Di and put hands on his hips "There you go, Miss Blythe." he said and raised his eyebrow in a funny way, making Di to laugh.

"I'm impressed, Carl." she said as the two of them closed the door of the room and started walking down the hall back to the stairs.

"Are you? You thought that I wasn't good with children?" he asked her.

Di humphed "No." she said and when Carl looked at her worriedly, she laughed „Of course I think that you are good with children, you silly, I'm just playing with you." she said and Carl nudged her on the side, laughing too.

"Oh, Di, you are an _irresistible_ monster sometimes." he said to her, emphasising the word "irresistable" so much that Di could feel how her cheeks turned positively red, although she couldn't find the answer to a question _why?_.

* * *

"Oh, _please_ be open!" Di murmured under her nose, springing towards the post office, trying to forget about the snow blowing into her crimson face. Di offered her Mother that she would send her letters to Aunt Leslie just one day before the New Years' Eve, the nice and kind person that she is, but Di regreted her idea as the snow blowing in her face really wasn't a help and the long coat she wore on that day, which she put on ever so hurriedly to catch the post office still open, had to be held by her at the ends as it could easily cause Di to fall on the ground if she didn't.

Di sighed with relief when she saw a light in the window of the post office and slowed down, catching her breath. She came into the post office and Mrs Inman, who worked there and knew Di since the day she first entered the post office as a little girl, smiled at Di and immediately grabbed a package lying next to the tall cupboard "You're in luck, Miss Blythe." she said sweetly "I was just about to close the office."

Di chuckled weakly and took the package from Mrs Inman's hands "Thank you, Mrs Inman," she replied "-I think that if I had to go back to Ingleside without having all the letters sent, I would sit on the ground and cry my eyes out." and she made Mrs Inman laugh.

"I see that your mother got another package from Mrs Ford? She's in Italy, isn't she?" she said, looking at the front of the package.

Di nodded and smiled "Yes, Aunt Leslie and Uncle Owen went on their "second honeymoon" as they described it, and decided on the ancient land of _Rome_." she answered with a sound of dreaminess in her voice "Well, here are the letters from Mother to Aunt Leslie." she took out of her pocket three letters addressed to a certain Leslie Ford in Rome, Italy "I will come back in a few days time when Mother will write more letters, and there's no doubt about _that_." she grinned at Mrs Inman and tucked the package underneath her coat, before going back outside.

Di started walking down the road which was again covered by the incredible amount of snow. She suddenly heard someone's footsteps creeping from behind her and she started walking faster as she was never comfortable with someone walking behind her, especially in the dark. All of a sudden, before she could do anything, someone grabbed her arm and caused her to stop, and she felt almost as if she was paralysed with fear but it wasn't necessary at all. "Di? Is that you?"

Di turned around to the fammiliar voice and her green eyes widened with surprise and _gladness_ upon the man she was in front of. " _Robert Keats_! You gave me the fright of my life!" she exclaimed and put her arms around his neck.

Robert Keats was the old Redmond-friend of Di's. He used to walk her back to her "home" after each day at the college, and their friendship blossomed. It never faded, not really, Di was always in touch with him by writing letters, but they never met each other face-to-face after finishing Redmond as Robert lived in Ottawa. And then, there he was standing in front of her! She missed him, she remembered how much he helped her to get through Walter's death or when she couldn't get the grades she was aiming for. Only then she realised how tall and how _handsome_ he really was. Every girl at Redmond used be head over heels for him, but she never knew why. She knew _now_. Robert was a tall and handosme man of twenty eight with broad shoulders, pointy chin, coal-black eyes, dark blonde hair and a cheeky smile. Apart from that, he was always dressed in a very elegant way, and he alwyas walked with a soft air of poetry and music surrounding him, and Di always knew this small fact which she really loved about him.

"Then I must sincerely apologise, Di." Robert said gently and touched her arm, as if to check that she really _was_ standing in front of him.

" _What_ are you doing here?" Di chuckled and squeezed his hand "You never told me that you're going to Glen!"

Robert laughed at her reaction "I wanted to make you a surprise." he explained "I opened a company here in Glen with my other friend, Chris, you remember him, don't you?"

Di's eyes widened even more and she clung to his arm with excitement "Of course I do, but _Robert_!" she smiled at him "You are going to _live_ here now? And as a _real_ architect?" she asked him.

"Yes, I live in a small apartment just over _there_." he pointed at the dark building right behind the building of the post office "And yes, I _am_ a real architect now. At least I'm trying to be. I was meant to call on you tomorrow, for the New Years' Eve." he said and a mischievous smile appeared on his mouth again.

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad, Robert!" Di exclaimed again "We are neighbours now!"

He chucled again "Yes, we are." he agreed "I would invite you for a cup of coffee but I assume that you're in a hurry?" he asked her, with a bit of hopefulness in his voice.

Di shook her head "Unfortunately I _am_ in a hurry, Mother will worry where I am so I suppose that I have to run back home now." she patted his hand which was still in her own "Would you like to come for New Years' Eve to Ingleside tomorrow?" she asked him expectantly.

Robert's black eyes started to glow "I would love that." he replied happily "I can't wait to talk to you _properly_ , after so many years." he winked at her knoiwngly.

Di punched him playfully in the arm "It was _just_ six years ago." she said to him "We're not so old... _yet_." and she and Robert laughed together.

"Quite true." he said to her.

"I must go now, Robert." Di said again and kissed his cheek quickly "I will see you tomorrow then?" she asked rather hopefully.

Robert lowered down to her ear "And even after tomorrow if you'll allow me." he whispered and Di's cheeks flushed with bright red.

"I'd like that very much, yes." she replied blankly "Goodnight." she said eventually.

Robert, to her surprise, leaned down to kiss her cheek in return "Goodnight, _mademoiselle_." he said in his old 'Robertish' way and winked at her, before Di smiled at him again and turned around to walk back to the Inglside.

"Why am I breathing so heavily?" she asked herself, clinging to the package underneath her coat " _Diana_ Blythe, don't you _dare_ fall in love!" she hissed to herself and was almost sure that she started thinking about something which _wasn't_ connected to Robert Keats but when she finally reached Ingleside, she couldn't remember _what_ it was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Dear readers, thank you all very much for reading this story, following it, favouriting it and of course reviewing it. I am extremely grateful and I hope that you enjoy this story more and more with each new chapter :) - Bathsheba Blythe**

* * *

 **Chapter V**

Dear Diary,

It is the first Friday of the year 1923, and therefore I decided to write in here everything that is happening as well as what I wish for for this new year that we all have just welcomed.

I don't have many wishes, and it seems a bit strange when I think of my New Years' wishes when I was let's say, fourteen years old, I had billions of them in my mind and now I don't even have five of them. What I wish for this year is to have my family happy and without any worries or fears on their backs. I wish for _all_ of my students to pass to Queen's and therefore to break the record of having just two students who didn't pass to Queen's two years ago. And that is it, that is all I wish for this year of 1923.

Three days ago we had a not-very-small party again, but this time at the House of Dreams. Persis and her husband Louis, came for a whole months' long stay as Persis has to show her French (as she _always_ emphasises that she is now a wife to a _French_ gentleman) husband where she comes from.

They, of course, plan on going to Aunt Leslie's and Uncle Owen's house in Toronto in two weeks time, but before that they will stay here in Glen and I'm very happy as I always liked Persis and she always liked _me_. It is good to see a friend after such a long time of not seeing or hearing her at all! We haven't seen each other in three long years and Persis reminded me of that as the very first thing she said to me was: "Di, you didn't change _at all_ in those three years and I'm positive that you _never_ will!". Darling Persis!

She looks absolutely wonderful. Her clothes make Nan's fingers itch, she didn't have to tell me as I could simply sense it, I could see that Nan was jealous of Persis's gloves with lace (which she got from Paris) and her velvet hat with a real peacock's feather on it. I must admit myself that next to Persis I feel rather small in my smart, "not outshining" jackets and dresses. But at least Persis seems not to notice her own clothes, not _so_ much at least.

But there is one thing that is changed about Persis, she started _smoking_ to the very horror of her sister-in-law Rilla, and so the disgusted looks coming from Ken are considered something of a norm whenever she says that she will "Go outside for a few seconds".

But I must admit that her husband, like she always wrote to me, is a _real_ gentleman. Louis is tall and handsome man with blonde curls and real sea-blue eyes. And his accent is simply as delicious as Susan's monkey face cookies, there, I must make sure that she will _not_ see this journal ever in her life or she would do things no one would imagine Susan Baker to do.

I must say that Persis is quite _enough_ in love with Louis, I don't mind her talking about him a bit, but _good grief_ , she talks about him most of the time! Ken must remind her that she does, sometimes by saying "Louis is next to you, Pers." and she closes her mouth, kisses blushed Louis on the cheek and goes back to talking about " _her_ " Paris.

But that's enough of Persis. Now I shall talk a bit about Robert Keats. Robert came for New Years' Eve to Ingleside and we talked until three o'clock in the morning, causing Susan to give me a speech in the morning as if I did something as good as _scandalous_! Robert didn't change one single bit and I'm incredibly glad because I wouldn't change him, not _ever_. He is a real hard-working and determined man, his company had its bright turn last week and I'm extremely proud of him, he's my friend after all.

Robert meets me three times a week, sometimes more, depends on how much work I have with "my" children. He always brings me some of his records with Mozart or Beethoven and we listen to them in my room and we analyse them together later on. I lend him my books and we talk about… well, _everything_ I think. He always brings me something, whether it's chocolates or flowers (I always ask him _where_ is he getting those flowers from, in the middle of winter and he replies "Dear Di, it is a secret which I will _not_ share with you, and it will be much sweeter that way.").

I forgot that it's so late at night, I shall make my way to the land of dreams and hopes now.

Yours,

Di Blythe

P.S. Hopefully I'll be able to write here more often, but I can't promise anything, not with dear Jacob Drew who for his life can't understand algebra and he makes me just as incapable of it as he is.

* * *

"Oh, but _please_ Di!" Persis insisted.

"No, darling." Di replied as calmly as she could "I am very thankful for your offer, but I must refuse it."

Persis sighed dramatically and clasped Di's hands in hers "Come on, Di! You would have so much _fun_! And I could find you a good-looking _French_ man…" she raised her brow and smiled impishly.

Di's mouth opened wider and she took her hands away " _Persis_!" she exclaimed "I said: thank you!"

Persis growled and crossed her arms " _Alright_ then." she said eventually although quite reluctantly "But do you promise that you _will_ visit me one day in France?"

Di smiled at her friend "Of course, I will." she replied warmly "One day." and the both of them laughed along with Rilla who was sitting beside them, watching their earlier fight with amusement.

"I will visit you with Di then." Rilla announced and then patted her huge stomach "If my children will allow me to!" she said and Persis grinned at her and Di squeezed her sister's hand.

"I can't believe that it will be your _third_ child, Rilla." she said and took the two year old Blythe on her lap, kissing his black curls tenderly "Do you think that it will be a girl this time?"

"I hope so." Rilla replied as if she was speaking to her baby growing inside of her "I love my darling boys but I always thought that having a daughter is something of a dream of mine from _very_ long ago." she smiled mysteriously and Persis and Di chuckled together.

"Let's hope it's a girl then." Di said.

"And if not, I am happy to adopt your third baby boy," Persis added with a smirk "-that is if you would not want to raise another man in your house."

Rilla and Di laughed together "Of course I _will_ want to raise my baby if it's a boy, Persis. What a horrible thought!" Rilla reprimanded her sister-in-law laughingly and tickled Blythe under his chin, making him to shyly grin at her in return.

"Do you think that you will have children in the future, Pers?" Di asked her friend.

"Of course I will." Persis replied eagerly "I want at least two sweet kiddies with my hair and Louis's eyes. But before we will start a family of our own, we want to finish our travels all around France and England _first_." she looked significantly at her friends and then chuckled herself "Oh, I _do_ love travelling, you know that girls, don't you?"

Di nodded and so did Rilla "We know it too well." they both said in unison and the three women, or in that moment _girls_ , couldn't stop laughing for another two precious hours.

* * *

"Class dismissed. Have a very good weekend, boys and girls." Di said to her "Queen's class" and when her pupils started getting up from their seats, she put her hand high in the air again and they all looked at her once more "And remember to revise for your mini-test next Wednesday!" she told them and grinned to herself when the students groaned.

Di started cleaning off the blackboard behind her while she humed the happy tunes of " _Whispering_ " by Paul Whiteman. That's how Carl found her, twirling around with a sponge in her hand and her red hair waving around her while she sang and laughed at the same time. "I see that you have just as much 'fun' in Fridays as your students do." he said to her, leaning against the door of her classroom.

Di jumped and turned to face him, blushing heavily. She never dreamed that someone could find her dancing and singing like _that_ , while cleaning the blackboard of her classroom "I suppose so." she replied to him with a smile "But Carl, you nearly startled me!" she exclaimed and Carl laughed.

"I thought I did. And I won't say that I didn't intend to, just a _little_." he answered to her exclamation and put on his hat "Ready to go?"

Di put down the sponge on her desk and took her folders in her arms "Do you mean that Auntie Rosemary let you go and have dinner at Ingleside at last?" she asked him with a raised brow while they started walking together outside the school building.

"Yes, she did." Carl smiled at Di "But that's only because Bruce is not feeling very well today and he needs Mother Rosemary to take care of him."

"Poor Bruce." Di said sympathetically.

"Oh, don't be so sad for him, Di." Carl chuckled "Bruce is 'over the moon' that he doesn't have to go to school on a day as snowy as this one is." he said and Di laughed, tightening up her blue scarf around her neck.

"So, Carl," Di started "-did you see Rilla's and Ken's little girl?" she asked him excitedly.

Carl shook his head "I was meant to pay them a visit yesterday evening but I had so many marking to do, I just didn't have enough energy to lift my head high enough." he explained "Tell me about little Leslie." he winked at Di knowingly and she smiled at him.

"She is so frecled that Mother can barely look at her without apologising." she replied and both of them laughed cheerfully "At _least_ her hair is auburn, Mother added with such relief that Father _rolled his eyes_ , and he never does so, not at Mother at least." she chuckled again "But Leslie is a sweet-pie and I could easily eat her up if I could. It's a shame that Persis left for Toronto just a day before Les was born."

"True, but she will see her little niece before she comes back to France, I imagine?" Carl asked her.

"Yes, she will." Di answered "But Carl, you _must_ see her and you _must_ tell Ken to stop talking about his "little baby-Willa" the whole time. He will listen to _you_."

Carl laughed again "You know that I _can't_ make Kenneth Ford speechless." he said "But I will try my best." he then looked at Di more sheepishly. There was one question that was on his mind ever since the New Years' Eve party at Ingleside, when he met Di's Robert Keats and when counted that this mysterious Robert danced with Di _four_ times that night.

Di looked at Carl and her brows furrowed "What is it?" she asked him worriedly.

Carl looked into her expectant eyes and sighed "Well, I was just wondering... how is this Robert fellow, your friend I mean?" he asked her eventually, and it was as if a stone was resting on his heart.

"Very good, thank you." she replied to him, her cheeks suddenly getting redder, _not_ because of the cold wind blowing into her face "But why are you so serious, Carl?" she asked him.

"I was just thinking, is there… well… anything between you two?" he asked her slowly.

Di laughed and waved her hand "No!" she chuckled "No, Robert is just a good friend of mine. He and I meet about three times a week and we listen to music, talk and read books, that's all. That's not enough to be in love." she said although she thought that it was just her mouth that moved, and that it wasn't her own voice speaking those words.

Carl looked away and his eyes followed the road in front of him "It is, Di. I think it is." he replied softly and Di looked at the road too, feeling more confused by his tone than she ever was.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter VI**

Dear Diary,

It is the beginning of April and I am nothing but the shaking ball of nerves whenever I think about my students writing their Queen's exams in _this very moment_. It is the big moment of my teaching career and I've been dreaming about it and fearing it very much at the same time. I know that I did _everything_ to make each of my pupils ready for this exam but who knows whether all of them will pass the exam or maybe just a few of them? Of course everyone is trying to cheer me up but somehow I just can't believe in any of those words they say to me.

Well, Robert is a help and so is Carl. Robert squeezes my hand in _this_ special way and tells me that he's very proud of me and that he knows that everything will be fine one way or another. He brings me some of those beautiful records he brought from his home in Ottawa, some of them are by my favourite Schubert. Robert dances with me in Rainbow Valley, even _without_ any music on, which caused dearest Susan to turn positively red from shame! _Shame_! But I can't be angry with Susan for long, she is a darling after all.

Carl helps me, like a friend helps another friend and I'm extremely grateful for him, he's such a dear. On the contrary to Robert he tells me _not_ to think that everything will be perfect but to think about the worst and just agree with it so that _if_ (like he always emphasises the word "if") it will come I will be prepared for it, but he later winks at me and assures me that my whole class will pass "for sure".

But let's talk about happier things, for example about the fact that I became an auntie again! Yes, Shirley's and Una's little baby girl has arrived last Saturday and she's all chubby and beautiful. Cecilia or rather "Cilia" as everyone calls her now, is a real image of Una, we can all see it even though she's just a week old. Cilia has black curls on her head and she has those beautiful dark blue eyes. Shirley is the proudest father I have ever seen in my life, yes, _Shirley_! I can't quite believe in how talkative he gets whenever it comes to a question "-and how is little Cilia doing?". This little baby is held all the time by Una, she loves her incredibly and she doesn't want to leave her for _one_ second. And Susan! She is beaming that her "little brown boy" is a father now and a father to a beautiful baby girl at that. But she whispered to Mother, thinking that I couldn't hear her, that she wished her skin was just a bit "browner", like Shirley's.

Goodness me it's four o'clock already, that means that my students are just about to finish their last paper. Oh, I feel that I have to go downstairs and ask Susan for some fresh tea and a slice of the honey-pie she did yesterday, it will do me good, I'm _sure_.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

Di and Robert took a walk down to Rainbow Valley on one warm afternoon in the middle of May. It was so nice to be walking in the sunshine again, after so many months overfilled with cold and snow. The trees danced waltz with the wind and there was a whisper of the ghosts of the past from every corner of them. The Tree Lovers bent their branches towards the two handsome people walking next to them as if they were the Queen and the King.

Both Robert and Di almost did look like royalty. Robert wore his new elegant suit with a blue tie which Di always considered as the most interesting she had ever seen, and he wore a black hat which suited his dark-blonde curls undearneath it. His eyes sparkled while he watched how Di's lips moved when she talked about how hopeless Jacob still was with his algebra and Robert was almost as good as enchanted when she laughed at his jokes. He never thought that someone could laugh as light-heartedly as Di could, and the way her grey (or were they green? he was always thinking afterwards) eyes twinkled when she looked at the trees around her, her mind filling up with memories Robert knew about very well.

Ever since the year before, when Di welcomed Carl back from Redmond in her grey dress and a straw hat, she _always_ remembered to dress up "properly", especially when she was meeting with either Carl or Robert. On that day, she wore a beautiful green-taffeta dress with long sleeves and a golden bow on her neckline. Her red curls, which recently had been chopped to the level of her chin, were covered by a small dark-green hat and her cheeks were flushed under Robert's gaze.

"Which season is your favourite one, Rob?" Di asked her companion as she put her arm in his strong one.

"I think that it must be spring." Robert answered with a dreamy grin "When the weather for each day is the chirruping of the birds. What about you?" he asked her.

Di smiled at him sweetly "I don't know, I love each season for different reasons." she replied.

""… the spring, the summer, the chilling autumn, angry winter, change their wonted liveries; and the mazed world by their increase, now knows not which is which"" Robert quoted with his mysterious poetic eyes.

Di patted him on the hand "I know this!" she said "It's Shakespeare. Walter quoted it to me once, I think it was right before the war started and the world _really_ seemed peaceful." she said absent-mindedly as she looked at the White Lady, almost being able to see Walter sitting right under it with a book in his hands and a funny serious brow starting to furrow as he was slowly drowning deep into the irresistable world of books.

Robert looked at Di and squeezed her hand, as he knew what she was thinking about "It's peaceful again, Di." he told her assuringly "Do you think about Walt very often?" he asked her suddenly.

Di grinned at him weakly "Yes, I do." she replied "There isn't a day when I don't think about him, even if it's just for a little while. And I don't mind now, it doesn't hurt as much as it did right after he… right after he died." she said softly.

Robert squeezed her hand again "I think about him too." he said warmly "And about my own brother Jason. Can you believe that he would be thirty years old this year?" he asked her or maybe even asked himself in disbelief.

Di looked up in Robert's eyes with sympathy "Oh, Robert…" she sighed helplessly "Do you think that they're safe and warm up there in Heaven? Do you think that they are peaceful?" she asked him and her eyes shone with hopefulness.

"Yes, I think they do." Robert answered with a smile "Maybe they don't eat as nice "monkey faced cookies" as your Miss Baker makes them, but I think they're happy up there." he grinned at Di and his eyes followed the clouds above him.

Di chuckled quietly "I think that you're right." she said "But there, Rob, let's talk about something different, like for example… Your plans for your _bright_ future." she said excitedly.

Robert chuckled as well "My plans for the future?" he repeated.

"Yes." she replied "How do you want to spend your lively and wonderful life, Robert Keats?" she asked him with a funny raised eyebrow.

Robert grinned at her and hurrumphed theatrically, making her laugh again "Well," he said "-I would certainly like my company to be as successful as it is now, or maybe even more. Then I think that I would want to live every moment as if it was my last."

"That's a good plan." Di said "But don't you want to have a family of your own one day?" she asked him a bit more shyly, and her cheeks turned more red than they already were.

"Of course I do." he said honestly "But firstly I must find this "one and only" someone for myself and _this_ can take a long time." he looked at Di more curiously " _Or_ a short time, depending on my luck."

Di's heart started to beat faster and she smiled at Robert hurriedly, then she looked at the Ingleside in front of her "And may it be, Rob, may it be." she replied.

* * *

" _Where_ have you been, Di? I've been waiting for you with this tea for at least an hour!" Nan exclaimed when Di, all blushed and trembling, entered her twin sister's house.

"I'm terribly sorry, dear Nan." Di replied absent-mindedly as she put took off her hat and kissed her sister's cheek in the similar manner.

Nan fixed her eyes on Di's face and her brow raised just a few milimeters up, so that Di couldn't notice it " _Where_ were you?" Nan asked her again, trying to appear more angry than interested.

Di grinned at Nan and followed her sister to the living room, where they both sat down on the sofa "I was in Rainbow Valley." she answered blankly.

Nan clasped her hands together and raised her eyes to the ceiling "With Robert, I imagine?" she said, half-sighing.

Di looked more sternly at her sister, coming from the clouds back to the Earth "Is it a question or a statement?" Di's cheeks flushed with red again.

"A statement _then_." Nan said decidedly and took Di's hand in hers but before she could say anything, Di interrupted her.

"Where are the children?" she asked her hurriedly.

"With Mother Rosemary." Nan answered ardently "Di, could you tell me… whether… you and…" she started more slowly and more sheepishly than she thought she would start asking her twin the question which she wanted to ask her for quite a while.

Di stopped her as she took her hand away "Oh, _Nan_ , I'm not sure anymore!" she exclaimed with passion her sister had never heard before "Everyone asks me this, _everyone_! And I always say the same answer: 'no, we're just friends'. But…" she looked at the window next to her and sighed deeply.

Nan looked closer in Di's eyes "But?" she repeated.

" _But_ … I think that's not true anymore." Di replied "I think that I might… I think that I _do_ … I think that I'm in love with him and that I have been for a while without me realising it." she finished and felt as if a big stone lifted from her heart. She looked in Nan's shining hazel eyes "Nan?" she asked worriedly.

Nan squeezed her hand and laughed joyfully "Di! You silly goose!" she said "You realised it just _now_? I've known for _weeks_ , ever since the New Years Eve I suppose."

Di laughed too and kissed Nan's cheek "Oh, Nan, is that how it is to be in love with someone?" she asked her excitedly "Being always eager to meet him, to hear his low voice and see the sparkle in his eyes? Feeling your heart beating faster than normally just because _he_ is next to you?" she questioned with hope in her green eyes.

Nan chuckled "Yes, that's exactly how it is to be in love, darling." she said and then looked in Di's eyes more cheerfully than excitedly "I am so happy for you my dear sister. Did you tell Robert?"

Di's eyes darkened "I don't know if _he_ loves me too." she breathed out dully.

"Di, I can see, _everyone_ can see that he does, whenever he leaves this soft kiss on your cheek when he announces that he must be heading back to his apartment and we all know that he says that just because either me or someone else disturped you two while being alone." she answered with a smile "But you _must_ tell him."

"I can't!" Di exclaimed in despair "I _can't_ do such a thing. I must wait until he will make the first move." she said decidedly.

"I think that, after all, you might be right." Nan said to her wistfully but smiled to her nonetheless "But don't wait forever." she warned her.

Di shook her head with a light grin spreading across her frecled face "I won't wait forever." she vowed and as she was being hugged by Nan, she could swear that she could still feel this delicate kiss that Robert left on her left cheek just one hour earlier.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter VII**

The month of June came as quickly as each June always had before and would come afterwards. The birds were singing everyday, the trees were dancing with the wind each morning and each evening and the sun was always high on the sky. It was a month which Diana Blythe would never forget for two main reasons which were connected with one another although one would think them impossible to be linked together in any way.

It was the first morning of June when Di woke up with the sun rising behind the horizon lightening the world around it, with her face pale from sleeplessness and shining from excitement mixed with fear. She jumped out of her bed and put on one of her prettiest dresses, a blue flowing dress with a laced sweetheart neckline. She then gently put on one of her mother's pearls around her neck and brushed her hair, while watching the sunrise. It was the day when she was supposed to learn which students of hers passed the Queen's exams and she was positively shaking as she was going downstairs to the kitchen.

" _Diana_ Blythe!" Susan exclaimed when Di sat down on her chair while Susan was turning around from the cupboard to put some of her toasts on the table "You could easily scare me to death!"

Di grinned weakly at her and put her hands underneath her chin "I'm sorry, dear Susan." she said softly "But I don't think that my brain is working properly right now."

Susan humphed and put the plate full of toasts on the table in front of Di "Well, _make_ it work then, Di dear, I will not have you scaring me or any of your parents like that." she replied and sat down next to Di "Why are you up so early anyway? Dr Blythe just came out for the call from the Upper Glen and Mrs Dr dear is still sleeping."

"I could hardly sleep anyway." Di answered her, rubbing her eyes "The uncertainty is really the worst feeling you can ever get."

Susan grinned at her kindly, drinking her tea "I suppose you're right, Di dear." she said "But today you _will_ know and you will laugh at this feeling in the evening, and that you may tie to." she nodded decidedly and Di chuckled.

"Thank you, Susan." she said lightly.

Susan patted Di's hand and looked at her almost angrily "Why aren't you eating your toasts? Do you want to look like a ghost all day long?" she flashed at her and when Di obediently took a toast to her mouth, Susan smiled with satisfaction, then she stood up from her chair and came over to the kichen's sink not realising that she had already cheered Di up.

* * *

Dear Diary,

I did it! I did it! _I did it_! My _whole_ class passed their exams to Queen's. _Each of my students_ passed! For the _first_ time in Glen's history!

I don't know if I will be able to believe it, maybe one day I will, but for now I have no idea how is that even possible to happen. I was nearly sick with worry when I got to school yesterday morning and when I walked into the classrom I could hardly feel my legs, as if I walked for at least thirty miles. But when I saw the smiling, happy and darling faces of my students, I knew that they did it and that _I_ did it too.

It was a joyful day at our school yesterday. As soon as I stopped congratulating each of my pupils, an idea popped into my head and we all took a walk to Rainbow Valley as it was the last day of school anyway. Mother and Susan talked with my students as well as I did and we all ate Susan's cookies and cakes which she was doing for the whole morning _in secret_ , so that I wouldn't know. Dear Susan!

Mother was positively beaming and I swear that she has never kissed me so much in my whole life as she did yesterday. Father was proud, he told me _four_ times in just two hours time and I could feel that I was, and still am, proud of myself as well.

When I was in Rainbow Valley alone in the evening, I could feel Walter's presence again and I haven't felt in a while I must say. I could _almost_ hear his soft laughter again. Tears started to flow down my cheeks... I don't know I think that I started crying after so many nights when I wanted to cry but _couldn't_ during this long last year when my nerves where being stretched and shrank every single day. I whispered then "Walter, I know that you can hear me, so listen to me dear brother, my achievement is just as much for me as it is for _you_." as that was what I realised in that moment and I could easily imagine Walter smiling at me, not answering, just smiling with his grey eyes shining in this special way which was far more precious to me than any other words which could be spoken.

So yesterday was the party with my students, my parents and Susan, but today (in about fifteen minutes exactly) the party with all of my family _and_ Robert is going to take place here at Ingleside. I am very excited as I intend to relax after the whole year of being nervous and exhausted. It's such a weird feeling I get whenever I think about that I'm going to see Robert in just a few minutes time... Who knows maybe I will make my mind on telling him about my feelings today after all, with all th excitement overwhelming me? Maybe I _won't_ , now that I think about it.

Goodness, Mother is calling from downstairs that Jem, Faith, the twins and little Julia have arrvied! I must fly then!

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

Di had a real blast on the day of the party at the old good Ingleside. Everyone came on time, the tables were placed in the garden of Ingleside where all the children could easily run around and explore the nature while their parents could still keep their eyes on them. The weather was a reflection of how Di felt, it was very warm, the birds were chirruping and the summer breeze could be felt on each of her guests' faces and was welcomed with smiles.

Everyone was bursting in pride over Di and her achievement, _even_ Mary Vance who smiled at Di and said: "I _never_ doubted in your success, dear friend." after which Di couldn't help herself but to chuckle causing Mary's eyes to turn bitter, but she forgave Di, it was after all her day of celebrations. Una and Rilla sat with Di in a circle, with their sweet little baby-girls in their arms, and the three of them giggled for the next hour.

Carl observed Di all the way through the party, they didn't talk much, there were too many people who were talking to Di at the _same_ time that he even laughed once when he saw how Di turned and looked at him, rolling her eyes in that funny way he loved. He was very proud of her for sure and he even brought her another bouquet of violets, as well as a lovely card with a written " _I knew it_ " inside it. However his cheeks went entirely red when he saw _what_ Robert Keats brought Di as his gift, he brought her a _gold_ necklace with a small glistening star on it, which at the back said: " _Reach for the stars_ ". In this moment Carl's heart froze, especially when he saw how Di's cheeks reddened and her eyes started to twinkle mysteriously. But then Carl and Di talked for a while and he made her laugh, and he then slowly started to think that he still _might_ be worthy of her. But his doubts rose up again when he heard Nan whispering to her husband, thinking that Carl who was sitting next to them couldn't hear them, that Di told her that she _loved_ Robert. In that moment, Carl sinked down into his chair, crossed his arms and his mind for the rest of the evening was entirely blank.

Right after the sun hid behind the horizon, leaving this beautiful painting of pink stripes running across the purple sky right above the Rainbow Valley, Robert took this precious moment of when Di stayed alone on the verandah and came up to her with a mischievous smile "Would you care for a walk?" he asked her.

Di raised her eyes from the plate she was holding and grinned at him sweetly "Of course, just let me give this plate to Father." she said and hurried to Gilbert with a plate full of strawberry cake. When Dr Blythe and his wife looked at their daughter, they knew that _she_ knew that today might be the day when her feelings for Robert might be revealed. They saw her flushed cheeks and her red locks furiously fighting with the wind and they also saw this sparkle in her green eyes, and Anne smiled at Gilbert knowingly and he squeezed her hand.

Di took Robert's arm gracefully and she proudly touched the necklace around her neck, while the two of them started their walk towards the Rainbow Valley "Rob, I will never thank you enough for this necklace." she said to him, her eyes smiling.

"You don't have to thank me at all," he replied with a grin "-it's a gift you deserve, and believe me for your achievement, I should say that you deserve even _more_." he looked quite seriously then and Di blushed again and chuckled to calm her heart which started to beat very quickly.

"If you say so." she answered warmly "What do you think about my family, Rob? It's a shame I've never met yours."

Robert squeezed her hand "I love your family." he replied cheerfully "It's so big and… happy. My family is quite the opposite unfortunately." he sighed "It's just me, my parents and grandmother Lily. That's why I'm partially happy to start my company where my strict parents and my even more scrupulous granny aren's there to criticise me, and so that I could feel more at home with my friends here than at home in Ottawa." he smiled at her knowingly.

Di's heart sinked a bit when he used the word 'friends' but she smiled back nonethelss "I'm glad that you like my family because they all like _you_." she told him merrily.

"They do?" he repeated with hopeful eyes.

"Oh, yes!" she grinned at him "My Mother is very impressed by the amount of poetry you know by heart and my Father thinks that you remind him of me in some ways." she chuckled and so did Robert.

"I think that maybe we are alike, in some ways." Robert agreed joyfully "And I'm glad that we are, it amazes me sometimes how we remained frineds for so long witout seeing each other at all, but now I think that maybe _this_ is the answer to my question." he said and looked deeply into Di's eyes.

She looked back in his eyes with the same gleam she could see in his own, and her heart started beating even faster "Do you think that… you will want to move away from Glen someday in the future?" she asked him worriedly.

"I don't know, Di, I truly don't." he replied honestly "Maybe, I'm quite sure that my company would be propsering better in some bigger city, but then I think that I prefer the countryside."

"You know what, I don't even know whether I prefer countryside or a city life?" she said suddenly "I've never been in a big city such as Toronto or Ottawa for more than two days and I could never quite make an opinion on whether I prefer the small Glen or the huge Toronto."

Robert smiled softly "Then you must allow me to be your guide around Ottawa the next time you'll be able to go and visit it." he said.

She nodded "Sure, I'd love that." she answered and then her heart almost popped out of her chest when suddenly Robert stopped her and took her hands in his. He looked down in her eyes with a shining sparkle of… _of_ … Di wasn't sure of what but she was _almost_ certain and that's why she started breathing so heavily.

"Diana." Robert addressed her decidedly.

"Yes?" she asked him so quietly that she wasn't sure whether she said anything at all.

"I've been waiting to say this since so long ago I can hardly remember since when." he said to her with a hidden smile in the corners of his lips "I _love_ you Diana Blythe." he breathed out eventually and Di felt as if her legs started to break down under the softeness of his voice "I love you since the day you bumped into me in the hall at my second year of Architecture. I love you as the moon loves the stars and as the sun loves the clouds. I love you for being _you_ , this incredibly beautiful person inside and out with those perfect red locks of yours." he said almost breathlessly and put Di's strand of her hair behind her ear with a witty smile crossing his face "Would it be very wrong of me to ask you to be my first and _only_ sweetheart?" he asked her eventually.

Di caught her breath at his words and she smiled at him, showing off her perfectly white teeth, her cheeks dimpled and pink from both the hotness of the day and the emotions overhwhelming her "On one condition." she said finally and Robert's brows furrowed but his smile remained unchanged.

"I'm almost afraid to ask." he whispered and Di chuckled again.

"Do not fear, Robert Keats." she said and put her head higher so that she could easily study his eyes "I can be your first and only sweetheart on one condition and that is if you will kiss me." her lips turned into a grin and Robert chuckled light-heartedly.

"I will do it with the greatest pleasure." he replied and his lips met with Di's. Di would later write about this kiss, her _first_ kiss, in her diary and she would describe it as "the most romantic thing that has _ever_ happened to me. So gentle, yet so passionate, and so affectionate, _and_ tender, the kiss that could be easily a song.". Di's happiness reached its highest level, and her hands wrapped around Robert's neck as the birds chirruped their enchanted song of June above them.

There was one thing that Di didn't know, and it was that one man with brown hair with golden glints and dark blue eyes, one of which was blind, was a witness to Di's first kiss. His face was sorrowful and his eyes were full of hopelessness, as just a few moments earlier _he_ planned on being the man who would kiss her pink lips for the first time.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter VIII**

Dear Diary,

July knocked on our doors just a week ago and although my "holidays" started already three weeks earlier, I was so busy during that time that I couldn't write in here for almost two weeks!

Robert and I announced our "courtship" as we call it while laughing at this ridiculously serious term, to my own and Robert's family just a day after Rob and I kissed on that beautiful sunny day of the day of the party at our old Ingleside. Mother is very pleased and Father always has conversations with Rob before I go downstairs from my room to greet my sweetheart. Susan is shaking her head, saying that in her eyes I am still (and supposedly I always will be) a small child and therefore she thinks that it all happened too fast, but Mother says that it's not too worry, Susan is really happy just more on the inside than the outside.

Nan is obviously dancing in happiness, and almost every single time I pay her a visit she giggles like her sweet baby daughter Rose, and tells me that it won't be too long when she will see a glistening _diamond_ ring on my finger. Rilla thinks exactly the same and she gives me those enormous winks which say everything they need to say in order to make my cheeks flush with red.

Oh, I don't know what to think about it. Of course I _love_ Robert, he is just this man, _this_ man I was waiting for all my life I suppose, but at the same time I don't want to rush into anything as serious as marriage. Nan herself was Jerry's sweetheart for all of those years of the war and then for two years afterwards before they eventually married. But when I think about getting married… It _is_ a girl's dream, isn't it? Whether we want or want not to admit it, this dream is in each of our souls.

I don't think that Robert has proposing in his plans. Right now we enjoy being able to hold each other's hands in this precious way while walking down the Rainbow Valley or the shore in Four Winds, and kissing when nobody is looking… I would never think that a kiss, even a soft and tender one, can be so romantic and so nice.

But if Robert _was_ to propose any time soon, I think that I would accept. After all, I have never (and I don't want to any other time for that matter) fallen in love with anyone else till now and Robert _is_ the one, I can feel it, even if I'm just writing it down. Besides let's be realistic, I turned twenty-eight recently and unfortunately I am _not_ getting any younger, I don't possess this strange magical air around me like my Mother does.

Let's go back to some happier things than my age: I am really enjoying myself and I'm happy that I have those two months off. I visit Una and Shirley almost everyday and I help Una with little Cilia as Shirley has to work harder now, it's the harvest time after all, and Una told me that she is in need of company when Shirley is gone. Therefore that's what I do, I visit her and I talk with my dear friend and admire my beautiful niece. Cilia is the image of Una at just four months old, she has sweet black curls all over her head and dark-blue eyes which Una calls the "steadfast eyes" with those shining eyes of her own. I've never seen Una as happy as she is when she's with Cilia in her arms or when she sees Shirley cooing over his little daughter. I'll say it again, Shirley is the _most_ adorable father I have ever known (apart from our own Daddy of course).

You probably ask now, why do you visit Una everyday? And not take walks with your Robert down the Rainbow Valley instead? Well, the answer is is that unfortunately Rob went for the whole month to Ottawa, to visit his parents, "To tell them all about you, _my_ Diana." he always says and I think I'll believe him. I'm glad that he went of course, I know that he missed his parents and that he worries over them especially as his mother was always sickly and was complaining about "being weak in her bones" for the past several weeks.

Rob is going back in two and a half weeks time so I can't say that I'm as sad as I could be. I am very lucky to avoid the situation in which each of my sisters were put, to wait for your sweetheart to come home, not knowing when and not knowing _if_. There, I have to finish now, and pack the brownies I attempted to bake two hours ago and I shall make my way over to Jem's, I promised the twins ( _especially_ Merry) a bunch of them last week and I wouldn't dare not to bring them for them to taste.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Delicious brownies, Di. I always knew you were a great cook even though you always said that you were quite the opposite." Carl said while chewing the last bit of his chocolate cookie with delight on his face. Di and Carl were sitting together under the Tree Lovers in Rainbow Valley on a bright and warm August evening. It was their tradition, to meet up and bring some blankets and food and then talk about everything that would come into their heads.

Di grinned at her friend "Thank you, Carl." she replied softly "But the secret to those brownies aren't _these_." she raised her hands up to her face "But Susan's watchful eyes and her ever moving hands."

Carl chuckled "Well, in that case I have to add that even though Susan's 'watchful eyes' had their part in making those brownies, it was still _those_ ," he gently took Di's hand in his own "-that made those delicious goodies."

Di blushed a little "Why, thank you, dear Carl." she said sweetly "Have you ever tried cooking yourself?" she asked him curiously.

Carl quickly shook his head "Of course not." he said decidedly "I always thought it the most difficult thing in the whole universe when I was a child." then he sighed.

"What is it?" she asked him worriedly.

""When I was a child"," he repeated "I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm not thirteen years old anymore." he answered wistfully.

Di grinned at him lightly and patted his hand "I've never met a man who thought that being a child was so much better than being an adult." she said.

Carl grinned back at her "Yes, I suppose that not so many people think that." he agreed "But _I_ think so."

"I don't know whether I would like to be a child again." Di confessed with a furrowed, thoughtful brow "I like my adult life now, I didn't for a while but now I do and I think I would like it to _stay_ that way."

"Even if this Robert of yours would propose to you?" Carl's mouth opened and the words were let out by themselves without him thinking about them. When his mouth closed again, he looked at the grass underneath his legs and his cheeks turned bright red.

Di looked seriously at Carl "Why is everyone asking me this?" she burst out "Even _you,_ Carl? Maybe you all think that I'm _waiting_ for Rob to propose so that I could eventually, _yes_ I know that everyone waits and watches out for me to get married, settle down and be a little plump housewife? Well then _all of you_ are mistaken, and I'm not intending to be married to _anyone_ in a while." she finished with a loud humph and crossed her arms angrily.

Carl looked back at Di ashamedly "Sorry." he said in one of those tones that could melt anyone's heart.

Di turned her head towards him and sighed, she then put her hands around Carl's neck and kissed his cheek "No, Carl. _I'm_ sorry." she said "I shouldn't have burst out like that."

Carl grinned at Di as she sat back down "I understand why you did. Maybe I shouldn't have asked about Robert, but I'm just curious about who he is and whether he's a good man for you."

"He _is_ a good man." Di's eyes started to twinkle all of a sudden "He is very intelligent and very poetic along with determination and tenderness in his heart. You _don't_ have to worry about me Carl." she assured him.

"I think I do." he replied in a voice which wasn't exactly his own "I must tell you that I never truly liked this man."

Di's brows furrowed again "But _why_? You have never even spoken to Rob." she said.

Carl shrugged "I don't know why." he said honestly "He's just so… perfect, I suppose."

Di looked at Carl again and there was a shadow of a smile hiding in the corner of her lips "Is it so wrong? To be perfect?" she asked him.

"I don't know if it's right." he answered "To be perfect, I mean. There's always something more to being perfect, something out of our reach and something which doesn't belong to us, to our personality."

"Interesting point you make, Carl." Di said and had to forbid herself from laughing at his seriousness "But I assure you that Robert isn't so perfect, nobody is." she chuckled eventually and it made Carl to smile at her shyly.

"I think that maybe you're right." he said eventally "But even though there might not be people entirely perfect, some people almost _are_." he said mysteriously looking at Di's hands resting on the fabric of her blue dress. Di didn't quite know what to say and therefore she crossed her arms, sighed deeply and laid down on the blanket, looking at the branches of the trees above her, thinking that she had never heard Carl being so serious about _anything_.

* * *

Di closed the door of her classroom and sighed with contentment, yes, the school started again and she couldn't be more glad about it. The happiness radiated from her face, especially when she saw a tall handsome man with blonde curls on his head riding towards her on his bicycle with a smile on his face.

"You crazy man!" she shouted to him, while holding her hat on her head in fear of it being blown away by the wind "What are you doing here, Rob?" she asked when Robert jumped off his bicycle.

He came closer to her and kissed her softly on the lips "I knew that I would want to know how your first day after the summer went. _So_?" he asked her with a raised brow and she chuckled.

"Oh, it was wonderful." she said joyfully and put her hand in Robert's very own "My new class is even better than the last one I think, much more... _interesting_ , but perhaps the students might be less prone to learn."

Robert smiled at her and squeezed her hand "It will be all fine, you'll see." he assured her "But the good thing is that your first day back was _more_ than fine."

Di grinned "That's true." she said.

"Shall I walk you home then?" he said and offered Di his arm.

Di took it gracefully and as soon as the two of them started walking, she stopped and looked around "Oh, Rob, I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be walking back with Carl. It was his first day back as well." she said worriedly looking at the door of Carl's classroom.

Robert looked in the same direction as Di and sighed softly "Do you prefer to walk with Carl instead of me?" he asked her.

Di's cheeks turned fiery " _No_ , of course not." she answered hurriedly "I much prefer walking with _you_ , darling. It's just that… Carl is my friend and I wouldn't want him to feel left out." she said eventually.

Robert put his hand on her cheek and smoothed it "I know that he's your friend, but don't you think that he would feel even more left out if he would be walking with us, the two "lovebirds" as my mother would say?" he asked.

Di looked around again and saw Carl in his classroom, facing his students and saying something to them with a soft grin on his face "Maybe he wouldn't be so cross after all? I will see him in the evening anyway, at Ingleside." she said, more to herself than to Robert who was standing next to her.

"If he's your true friend, I don't think he would be cross at all." Robert replied decidedly "Besides, I was planning to take you out for a coffee and a delicious cheesecake at the "Rosie's Cafe". If you would like it of course." he grinned at her and Di smiled back at him, her eyes gleaming again.

"Yes, I would like that very much." she answered and that's when she started walking hand-in-hand with Robert and although her face was shining, her thoughts were in the small Biology classroom where a tall man with brown hair with golden glints was about to finish his own lesson.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter IX**

When October came and with it the soft whispers of the wind and the leaves flying off the trees at each corner, Robert's company slowly started to fall apart. Di was very worried about him and to be honest she couldn't think of anything else but about how disappointed and stressed her sweetheart was in that moment. She couldn't listen to the soft whispers of the wind, nor she could focus on anything _apart_ from her lessons at the Glen school and those private lessons she was giving three times a week.

It wasn't just the situation of Robert she was worried about, in fact she was mostly worried about the situation _she_ was put in. Di knew that if nothing that would cause the rise of Robert's company would occur, he would decide on going back to Ottawa and this _could_ mean that he could ask her to come with him, and this means that he would probably ask her to _marry_ him.

Of course, Di wasn't sure whether or not Robert could propose to her or not, but after all that was the possibility which she could face in a matter of months, weeks or even _days_. _What_ should she answer him if he asked her? Of course she loved him, loved him wholly and truly but… They started courting just a few months earlier, and somehow (although it would be _very_ romantic) it didn't seem right for Di to accept Robert's proposal and actually _marry_ him so soon. It just wasn't… _right_. Neither sensible, she concluded.

Was Di enough in love with Robert to follow him to Ottawa, leave her home and her beloved family with her teaching and her pupils, and follow him to the strange city she hardly knew? Di didn't know, and every time when she thought that she knew the answer, something in her stomach was telling her otherwise. But Di continued on living as normal, she was teaching at school with a smile on her face, she was marking the exams in a speed of light, she was visiting her siblings and friends on regular basis, she was taking walks with Robert and Carl respectively and _sometimes_ she could forget about her dilemma.

On one day in the middle of October, Di woke up to the sound of wind blowing in the window of her room. It was Saturday and therefore the one day when Di could actually wake up whenever she wanted, so she wasn't surprised when she looked at the clock standing on her night-table and realised that it's almost midday. Di took her time, she dressed up in her nice dark purple dress with a lace neckline and she brushed her short red locks while watching the Rainbow Valley out of her window. She then walked downstairs and made her way to the kitchen, where she was met with the delicious smell of Susan's cooking coming from the oven and then with her Mother sitting in her chair with a cup of tea in her hand.

Anne looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at her daughter in this mysterious smile Di hadn't seen before on her Mother's face "Good morning, darling." she said softly and offered Di a chair.

Di sat down on the chair next to her Mother and looked at her curiously "What is it?" she asked her.

Anne shrugged and pretended that she started reading her book again, although she couldn't hide a small grin creeping in the corner of her red mouth "Nothing, dear." she replied "I'm just happy to see you."

Di furrowed her eyebrows and she looked in the direction of thesound of the footsteps behind her "Di, dear, here's your breakfast. Your favourite apple pie and coffee, the one you always liked the most." Susan put the plate and the cup in front of Di and her eyes were smiling even though her small lips hardly moved.

Di looked at Susan seriously "Susan, did something happen about which I'm not aware of?" she asked.

"I don't know _anything_ Di, dear, and _that_ you may tie to." she answered her hurriedly, returning back to the kitchen. Di shook her head and turned to her breakfast, her mind working on its full capacity, thinking about all of the possibilities that could or could not explain the difference in this morning compared with any other morning she had experienced before.

* * *

On the same day, just one hour after Di finished her breakfast and sat down to marking her class's "mini-tests", a tall young man with dark blonde hair and be coal-black eyes knocked on the door of Ingleside and Di, without any thinking, knew that it was Robert.

She smiled and put the papers and her pen aside, she stood up and flew downstairs straight into the arms of Robert Keats, whose eyes were as shiny as the eyes of Anne and earlier Gilbert's were, although Di didn't know it _yet_. Di put on her shoes, her grey hat and a coat, she put her arm in Robert's arm and allowed him to lead their way to the Rainbow Valley.

"Oh, isn't Rainbow Valley the most beautiful place you have ever seen, Rob?" Di exclaimed when the two of them strolled alongside the reds, yellows and oranges surrounding them "Especially in the autumn, it's so beautiful." she said dreamily.

Robert looked down at Di and he sighed contentedly " _Very_ beautiful." he whispered and one could only wonder whether he was talking about the woman in front of him or the place surrounding her.

Di looked up at him and grinned at him sweetly "Everyone is so happy today, I must do nothing _but_ wonder where is this fountain of happiness from which everyone was drinking this morning." she said "Do you know where this place is?" she asked him.

"If you'll close your eyes and imagine the sound of a waterfall, you can almost see it." he whispered into her ear and Di did just as he said.

Her face turned into peace and calmness and joy. Robert watched her for a little while, trying to remember this small precious moment that would stay in his mind forever "Can you see it?" he asked her.

She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him lightly "Yes." she replied and Robert bent down to kiss her lips tenderly. Di then stopped him and put her hands in his own "Robert?" she said.

"Yes, Diana?" he replied with a small grin.

"You haven't kissed me like that for a while, not since your company started to fall apart." she started "Does that mean that your company is doing better now?" she asked him expectantly, her heart beating faster than she would like it to.

Robert squeezed her hands "In a way." he answered and Di sighed with relief "What I mean is that it _will_ be doing better."

Di's brows furrowed again "What do you mean?" she asked him.

"My father made it possible for me to re-open my company in Ottawa, in January." he replied cheerfully "And I can do nothing but to take this opportunity and come back to my hometown, where my company will be prospering better, so that I could _eventually_ settle down." he said the last sentence more seriously than he should, in Di's eyes.

She started breathing heavily and then blinking furiously, her mind whirling around her like a cloud of hopelessness. That was it, she thought, and what should she do when… "Diana Blythe, will you marry me?" Robert asked her in a low, full of hope and certain voice.

Di looked at him as if he was completely mad. Her mouth was slightly opened but no sound left it. She looked in Robert's eyes, so full of hope and poetry and _love_. She looked in the reflection in his eyes, her own self, and her mind was blank, and so was her face.

"If you're worried whether your family will approve, you needn't worry," Robert said suddenly "-I asked your father for his approval today in the morning and he said that he is more than happy to allow me to take you as my wife." he smiled at her again.

Di's cheeks turned positively red and her heart seemed to stop beating. She put her hands on her cheeks. So that's why everyone, Mother, Susan and now Robert were so happy and joyful, they _all_ knew that he would propose to her that afternoon. But what should she answer, what should she answer, _what_? She must think quick! But she couldn't, and she looked away from Robert's eyes, and looked at the White Lady standing in front of her instead.

Robert observed each of Di's movements and wasn't quite sure what to do himself, he therefore put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him "What is it, dear?" he asked her worriedly.

"I… don't… know." she murmured slowly.

"What don't you know, Di? You know that you can tell me everything that's in your head right now." he said with a soft smile on his face, although his eyes were betraying him, he was full of fear that her answer wouldn't be the one he desired.

Di gulped to hold back tears and took a deep breath "Robert, I love you, I _really_ do." she said eventually "And I want to be your sweetheart just as much as I want you to be mine but… It's all so _quick_ … so soon. I simply don't know what to answer you."

Robert put her in his arms and kissed the top of her head "Of course you do." he whispered "Everyone does, dear, in a situation like this."

Di pulled away and looked at him seriously again " _I_ don't." she said helplessly "And Robert, you _must_ give me time to think."

Robert looked at the side and the smile from his face vanished, his face was almost grey compared with all the trees around him which seemed like a perfect composition of autumn's warmest colours "I didn't think that you would want that." he said eventually, his voice changed "But alright." he turned his head to Di and grinned bitterly at her.

Di smiled at him radiantly and kissed his cheek softly "Thank you, Rob." she whispered "Thank you, darling. I _promise_ that I will give you the answer soon."

"I hope so, dear, because it seems," he whispered back into her hair "-that I can't live without you." Di put her head against his chest and there was only one question that sounded in her head "But _can_ or _can't_ I live without _you_?".

* * *

"So… What are you going to do?" Carl asked Di. The two friends were going back together from the Glen school straight after their lessons, when Di decided on telling Carl about her secret proposal she got from Robert and her confusion as well as nervous state of her mind and her body.

Carl listened to her patiently, nodding from time to time, sometimes feeling sorry for Di who had to fight a huge battle with her own self, and sometimes forbidding himself even to show some kind of a grin which was lurking in the corner of his mouth. Di on the other hand was relieved that she could tell the story to Carl, he was after all one of her closest friends and she needed to get just as much different opinions on the topic as she possibly could.

"I don't know yet." Di sighed, tightening the scarf around her neck "I told my parents, and Nan of course."

"What did they say then?" Carl asked her.

"Mother was calm, and she talked with me for a while about it. She was in a simmilar situation to me, long time ago when she was in Redmond herself, you know." Di explained "She told me that I will know what decision to make but that I have to give myself some time. Father on the other hand said that he thinks I probably shouldn't waste my time on thinking about it and he's right in a way, Robert is supposed to re-open his company in Ottawa in less than two months time." she sighed again "But the worst of everyone is Nan. She thinks that it is _ridiculous_ that I didn't answer Robert right away and that I didn't accept him in the first place, but you know Nan, she wants everything to be _so_ romantic, and asking for some time to give an answer to a proposal is so much less romantic than the quick, certain and breathless " _I will_ "."

Carl looked in Di's eyes and let out a small chuckle, making Di to laugh quietly as well "Maybe it _is_ less romantic, but it's more sensible." Carl said eventually "Di, do you… do you… love him?" he asked her shyly.

"I do." she replied earnestly "But I don't know if I love him _enough_ to marry him, to be his wife for the rest of my life. I don't know if I love him enough to leave my family, friends and a career and follow him to the unknown land of Ottawa. Carl, _I don't know what to do_." she groaned and put her arm in his own.

Carl sighed helplessly and squeezed her arm "I think you do, but you just haven't realised it yet." he said "Maybe, deep down, you feel that you know what is right or wrong decision in this case but you simply reject this idea and don't consider it as an option."

"But _what_ idea?" Di asked him.

Carl opened his mouth and then closed it before he opened it up again "I don't think that I'm the right person to ask." he said finally, quietly.

Di looked up at him "I won't trouble you anymore, Carl." she said decidedly "What kind of a friend am I, to make you talk with me about some tragic love affairs of mine."

"Especially, with a friend like me, the old bachelor." he replied and the two of them laughed together "Just you wait and see, Bruce will be married and will become a father before _I_ will stand at the altar."

Di punched him playfully in the arm "Oh, _shush_." she told him laughingly "You're just trying to be such a brave and a grown-up man. Of _course_ you'll marry Carl, one day."

"Maybe." he answered her calmly, although his heart started to beat quickly "Who knows?"

"Watch out, maybe one day I will become a rebel, an absolute _wicked_ woman," she said excitedly, and Carl's eyes started to laugh "-and I will say to myself: "Robert can pick some other Anne Hathaway" and I will kidnap you and marry _you_ instead." she started laughing so hard that tears started to flow down her red cheeks. Carl laughed too, although his laugh was a bitter one. Di would hear its bitter tones if she didn't get a headache in that moment, because her tears suddenly turned from the funny little 'laughy' tears, into sorrowful and hopeless tears, and the sound of her laughter turned into a sound of sobbing.

Carl put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead tenderly "Oh, Carl!" she cried "How could such a joke make me so hysteric?" she asked more herself than she asked Carl "Oh, Carl, _Carl_! I don't know what to tell Robert! I love him, I _love_ him… I do…" she sobbed into his shoulder.

Carl put his hand on her head "I know you do." he whispered, and he too said it more to himself than he said it to Di.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter X**

Just as suddenly as the year of 1923 started, it was about to end. The cold month of December came to every country around the world and everyone, more or less gladly, welcomed it.

Di welcomed it half-gladly and half-nervously. She was very excited for Christmas, for spending another three weeks of pure preparation with her whole family, decorating the house, the Christmas Tree, and singing Christmas carols quietly so that no one could hear her or outloud while dancing with her Father or her brothers at the same time. But she was nervous as the day when she was supposed to tell Robert about her decision whether or not she shall marry him, was coming closer and closer.

She was in just as much of a dilemma as she was on the day when Robert asked her to marry him. She talked to most of her family members about it, more with some and less with some others of course, and she thought more secure somehow, that whatever decision she shall make she would always have her family standing next to her.

Robert wasn't bringing up the subject, and Di was glad and not entirely glad about it at the same time. She thought that he would make her very nervous if he _did_ speak about it but then when he _didn't_ she could feel the question's presence in the air that was always around Robert, in the gentle squeeze that he was giving her when he held her hand and in every look he was giving her whenever their eyes met. But Di was strong, and strong she would remain. She was determined to forget all about _this_ question and the decision until after Christmas and so she was doing her best to keep this promise to herself.

And just as suddenly, the Christmas Day came and with it the family dinner which Di was longing for for more than a month's time. It felt so strange, to see all of her siblings and brothers and sisters-in-law not changed one single bit but with their children a year older, looking as if they must have gained at least two more years.

Merry was, like always, running after Gilly and vice versa, Walt was playing with his toys with Blythe and Jake and little Julia and Rose sat together and giggled all the way through the dinner as if they were telling each other the funniest of jokes. Cilia was in her grandfather's arms, in John Meredith's arms, as she was his favourite grandchild, who had his first wife's, Cecilia's, eyes. Eventually, wee Leslie was happily sleeping in her father's arms, closing her eyes in the same way like her mother did when she was just a wee little baby herself.

And there she was, Di thought to herself, simple and old _Auntie_ Di, sitting and chatting, looking and playing with the children once in a while, sometimes needing to remind herself that none of those children were her own. Yes, she _did_ want to be a mother, and _yes_ , she did want to be a wife. Di almost decided on that Christmas Day that she _would_ marry Robert Keats in the end and go with him to Ottawa, but still, there was something in her mind that just told her not to decide, not just _yet_.

"I can't believe that next month is going to be _1924_!" Rilla exclaimed as she sat down beside Di with Blythe in her arms, whose head was going to the front and back, as he was slowly drifting away to the land of dreams "It seems that the war has just ended, and it _did_ end: _five_ years ago!" she shook her head in disbelief.

Di chuckled "These were long five years for me." she confessed "And I don't think that they went quickly at all. So much had happened, so much had _changed_ and expanded. It seems for me that the war never really happened, or if it did, that it happened at least ten years ago."

Rilla smiled at her sister "You are right, so much things changed in just five years time." she agreed and kissed Blythe's sleepy head "I became Mrs Kenneth Ford, then a mother to two beautiful boys and eventually to a beautiful baby girl." she sighed contentedly "I wonder how much more our lives _will_ change?"

"I sometimes wish that I won't have to know." Di murmured absent-mindedly and then, when she saw Rilla looking at her worriedly, she grinned at her radiantly and stood up from her chair "Anyone cares for a walk? I am in need of some fresh air." she said to her family.

Carl waved at her with his cheeky smile crossing his face "Sure thing, Di." he said and stood up from his chair and went to put on his coat.

"Anyone else wants to join us?" Di asked again but everyobody just grinned and started chuckling again, making Di to smile at them all lovingly.

"Just don't catch any cold, you two!" Susan sniffed while stroking Julia's red curls tenderly. Anne put her hand on her mouth and Di knew that she was about to giggle like a little girl if she hadn't done that. Julia somehow knew what her grandmother was about to do and started giggling herself, making the room laughy and sweet again.

Di and Carl started walking down the Rainbow Valley and Di could almost hear the laughter, singing and music coming from each corner of that snowy land of the known and the unknown. She smiled and closed her eyes as she put her arm in Carl's own arm. "Carl, do you sometimes hear the music and laughter when you walk down the Rainbow Valley?" she asked him dreamily.

Carl looked down at her and grinned "Thank God!" he exclaimed "I'm not so crazy then!" and he made Di to laugh again.

"But seriously, do you?" she opened her eyes and looked in his dark-blue ones.

"Yes, I do, very often." he admitted "And sometimes, I like to imagine that all of the sounds I hear are from not just the past or present but also from the _future_."

"Hmm." Di smiled at him "I like this idea. I've never thought of that before but I like it." she said and squeezed his arm knowingly "Just imagine all of those children, Merry, Walt, Julia, Rose, Cilia, Leslie, Blythe and Gil running and dancing around those trees as young adults." she said excitedly.

"I can see them all very plainly tonight." Carl agreed "The funny and crazy Merry, just like his father Jem; his twin Walt somewhat different but not so _very_ different, dancing with some pretty girl his age; Julia beautiful and happy singing and dancing with at least _five_ different boys," that's where they both laughed "-Rose being just like a real rose and just as romantic as a single rose can be; Cilia being a perfect image of Una, sitting and reading under the White Lady; Blythe sitting next to Cilia, observing everyone with a dreamy look on his face…"

"Did you notice how much Blythe looks like Walter?" Di interrupted him suddenly "His black curls, his grey eyes, the eyes of a _poet_." she whispered and shivered, as if she felt that her own brother Walter was listening to their conversation "I wonder if he will be just a _little_ bit like Walter was."

Carl squeezed her hand a bit harder, he _knew_ what she was thinking about "I think he might be." he said "I hope so actually. Another poet in the family would be a real blessing." he smiled at Di who smiled back at him "But let me finish," he harrumphed theatrically "-and after Blythe there would be Gil, tapping and winking at every girl he sees. I am pretty sure that Gil will be like that, he gets his character from Ken." he smirked and Di hit him in the arm, causing him to laugh.

"Carl, we don't know that for _sure_ yet." she said to him laughingly "But I can't wait to find out."

"How are you feeling Di?" Carl asked her all of a sudden "In general, I mean?"

"Good, I suppose." she replied honestly "Today is a good day. And I'm grateful for that walk, Carl. You have something in you that makes me feel that everything is right in the world." she said.

"It's not me, Di." he nudged her at the side "It's just how it is. And it must be, even with some bumps along the way."

Di looked in Carl's eyes and before she could even think of something to say, a loud voice of Susan Baker sounded up in the air "Diana _and_ Carl! Come back inside _now_ or you will catch pneumonia or miss my mince pies!"

Di and Carl chuckled together "Or we will miss _both_." Carl whispered to Di and the two of them started running together to the door while laughing like little kids "Di…" Carl said sheepishly, his cheeks turning suddenly red.

"What is it?" she asked when Carl stopped her from coming inside just yet, they were both standing right in front of the entrance to the house.

Carl pointed at the mistletoe which was hanging on the top of the door with a red bow tied around it. Di's own cheeks turned bright red and she tried to cover them by laughing instantly "Who put it up there, I wonder?" she asked.

"I'm sure it was either Ken or Jem, playing tricks on their wives." Carl said and Di chuckled.

"Do you think that we should…" she started quietly.

Carl's lips formed into a graceful grin although he tried his best to hide it "Well, tradition _is_ a tradition, isn't it?" he replied impishly and took Di's hands in his own before he bent down, not slowly at all, and kissed her straight on the lips.

Di's heart went up to her throat as she realised what was actually happening. Sure, _of course_ , it was just a tradition to kiss under the mistletoe, but this wasn't… a _traditional_ kiss. It was gentle, tender _yes_ , but this kiss spoke to her as if it was a whole book. Without knowing or realising it, Di's hands went up to Carl's face, and his hands went down to her waist.

Carl, without a need to say it, was beyond delight. It was his first kiss, and he was overjoyed that it was a kiss from no one else but _the_ Di Blythe whom he loved most of this world. Even though he knew that it wasn't a kiss she would lay on Robert's lips, it was more friendly, he stoped thinking so after some time and thought that maybe _something_ changed in Di, that something was telling her that he was the one for her after all. But as soon as he thought that Di pulled away, breathing heavily and laughing nervously while patting his cheeks with her hands "Do… you…" she started, her mind completely blank "-do you think… that we should go inside?" she asked eventually.

Carl's face looked quite disappointed then, but he grinned at Di nonetheless "I suppose so. They might actually think that we _were_ kissing under the mistletoe." he said. Di chuckled quietly and opened the door. She put her hand on her chest, and only then she realised that her heart was beating faster when she actually thought that it didn't beat at all.

* * *

It was a chilly afternoon of the second day of the year 1924, and Anne Blythe was sitting in the living room in her comfortable old chair near the fireplace with a blanket on her shoulders and a book in her hands.

Susan was out visiting Miss Cornelia, and Anne decided on staying at home as she felt "weak in her bones" for the past few days and her own husband, before he went to work, advised her to stay at home. But even if Anne felt perfectly right on the body, she knew, she _felt_ that she should stay anyway because something was keeping her at home, some unearthly power about which she was supposed to learn in a matter of seconds.

The front door opened with a loud "Bang!" and closed with the loud "Bang!", fast movements could be heard even in the attic of the old Ingleside, and the soft sound of sobbing and a sound of heavy breathing was penetrating the walls so dangerously that something in Anne's throat started to hurt. "Di?" she managed to say as she put her book on the side.

Of course she didn't get an answer, instead she heard Di running up the stairs to her room. Anne sighed worriedly, she knew _what_ must have happened. She stood up from her chair and made her way upstairs, to the sound of weeping.

Di was curled up on her bed, her face red from both emotions and crying and her hands shaking nervously. Anne sat down next to her without saying her name at all, and she put her hand on Di's head and stroked her red hair gently, as if she was brushing it with her own hands. Di gave out a quiet cry again and suddenly turned to her Mother and put her arms around her. " _Oh_ , Mother!" she cried in her shoulder "I broke his heart but I also broke my _own_!"

Anne kissed Di's hair tenderly "Then why did you refuse him, darling?" she asked her softly.

"Because…" she started "-because I'm _not_ ready to marry and to leave you all and… I'm just _not ready_." she pulled away and wiped her tears away in order to look in her Mother's eyes.

Anne smiled kindly at her daughter "My darling girl," she said "-do you feel that that's the right thing to do? Tell me what do you feel in your heart and I'll help you, sweetheart." she said warmly, Anne was overjoyed that she could be a mother to her twenty-eight year old daughter again, even though she felt terribly sorry for her at the same time, to see her so unhappy wasn't something that made her feel quite content in her heart.

Di looked at Anne for a moment and calmed herself down "I feel that it was a necessary thing to do." she announced "I love Robert and I know that he loves me but I just couldn't accept his proposal." she put a strand of her hair behind her ear "I told him that I couldn't marry him because of how rushed it all is and that I still want to be his sweetheart after all, but Robert got _so_ upset, Mother, I thought that _he_ would cry and I'm almost sure that his eyes were teary. But…" her own eyes truned wet again "But Robert said that if my answer to his question is 'no', he needs some time and that he can't…" she gulped "-he _can't_ promise me that he will write to me soon or... _ever_." she hid her face in her hands again.

Anne put her protective arms around her daughter and rocked her back and forth like she did many years before "Di, darling, everything happens for a reason." she told her wisely "Even all of those heartbreaking events that happened, or _will_ happen, happen for some reason." her eyes could almost see a tall black-haired dreamy man standing next to her and she smiled at the memory which wasn't so painful anymore "Maybe you and Robert simply weren't meant to be."

Di looked in her Mother's eyes again, her own looking less teary than a few moments ago "What if… I made a _wrong_ decision? What will happen then?" she asked her while her upper lip started trembling.

Anne put her hand on Di's cheek and grinned at her softly "You _couldn't_ make a wrong decision, Di." she told her "It is all God's plan and you will learn more about his plans for you in your own time. Robert was a bit harsh on you, I must say. But then of course he's upset, just like you are. But this wound will heal, slowly but it _will_ , darling you must trust me on that. You remember Roy Gardner, the boy I was about to get engaged to when I was in Redmond? Right, you know what I learnt when you were just a little girl, so many years ago? That Roy married just two years after I rejected him and moved to the States." she chuckled a bit "Roy got over me quite quickly, although he almost swore that he wouldn't. But then, I'm not saying that you and Robert won't be together in the end. Who am _I_ to judge? But darling," she kissed Di's red nose, making her to smile a bit "-just let the time show, and carry on with your life and be open to all the happiness around you."

Di nodded and smilled weakly at Anne "I promise that I will, Mummy." she whispered and put her head against her mother's chest "I won't disappoint you by shutting myself to the whole world around me."

Anne smiled to herself "You would never disappoint me, Di darling." she whispered back.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter XI**

Dear Diary,

I think that this year will go very quickly, even quicker than the year of 1923 did. I think so because today is the first day of February _already_ , and I couldn't quite believe it when I was writing the date on the blackboard in my classroom today.

I can finally say that I can think about other things which _aren't_ connected in any way with Robert Keats from Ottawa. No, I haven't heard from him, and I didn't write to him either as like he said, he needed time after my rejection of his proposal. I miss him dreadfully, his dark blonde curls almost coming into his black eyes when the wind is blowing, his poetic and optimistic view of the world… Well, I suppose that I just have to do as Mother and Father told me to, just wait and see what will happen.

The one thing which I believe I should discuss here, is this funny gossip which I don't suppoe is true but nonetheless I'm _not_ entirely sure about. The gossip is that Carl, _our_ Carl, has a sweetheart.

True, Carl told me that some other day he met, purely by accident, a beautiful girl of the name Rosalind Sutton, and the two of them are meeting up once a week in the cafe since then. Rosalind is British and she's my age. She came to Canada after the war as she married a Canadian in around 1917 but he was killed just before the end of the war and he left her an _enormous_ amount of money (as he didn't have any family of his own). Rosalind then travelled to PEI and although she didn't quite know where she should settle down, she found a friend from Glen and so she came to our small town and opened up a fabric shop just a month ago.

I've never met nor seen Rosalind Sutton yet but Carl talks about her, not too much of course, I don't think he wants me to know what kind of feelings he possess towards her, but he promised me to introduce his "Rosa" to me "sooner than you might think" as he told me with this cheeky wink of his.

If this rumour is true, which I _don't_ think it is, then I will feel really lonely, isolated from the world of love and hopes for the future. I don't know what I will do then, with my only friend who isn't married _now,_ eventually married to someone in the end! But there, I just realised how selfish I am! Not so long ago it was _me_ who was sweethearting and that was _Carl_ who was alone and, like I wrote before, "isolated from the world of love". Therefore I must _not_ think like this, it's not fair towards him, especially because he is my friend, one of the closest I have.

I am happy for Carl, if he really is sweethearting, and all I can do is to hope that Rosalind knows how _good_ he is and that _she_ is good enough for him.

Nan still can't forgive me that I rejected Robert, she reminds me of it ever since I told her that I said "no" to him (which was a month ago!). She told me off immediately and called me "utterly stupid and so very _unromantic_!". But what can I do? Robert doesn't want to speak to me and maybe he _never_ will. The very thought makes me shiver, especially because I know that he's so far away from me, and that if he really won't write to me I won't see him again, most likely.

The only thing that somehow keeps me hopeful is my teaching and my students who need me, as I realised that _I_ need them too. The other thing that keeps me going is my family of course (maybe apart from my _own twin_ ) and my nephews and nieces. Talking about which, my favourite (I must say it) Merry, did something yesterday that made me laugh, _really_ laugh like I did before… well, you know before what.

Merry, being a funny red-headed monster of nearly four years of age, visited Ingleside yesterday with his twin brother and sister, and their parents of course. We were all sitting together in the living room, I was holding and talking to little Julia and Walt was in his father's arms, playing with his hands. Suddenly Faith started looking nervously around the room and jumped "Where is Merry?" she asked us. We didn't know but as soon as we all rushed to stand up and start our search for him, a loud screams of Susan and Mother started coming out from the kitchen (as the two of them were preparing dinner together). We all rushed to the place where the horrific sound was coming from and as soon as we came in to the kitchen we saw Merry, laughing his head off, _covered in flour_ (the rest of the room was covered in flour as well, not mentioning Susan and Mother).

"This little monkey was hiding a… a _mouse_ in _his_ pocket!" Susan squeaked, still under the shock of what Merry was holding in his hand.

Merry patted the mouse in his small chubby hands and started laughing again. Susan then added quickly that it was when she was opening the flour that Merry said to both her and his grandmother "Look what present I brought for you!" and _that's_ why the whole kitchen was covered in a white powder. It was me who started giggling first, Jem followed almost immediately and so did Faith and Mother, along with Father. Only Susan still remained tough, and even underneath her white face, I could see how her cheeks turned positively red.

Well, I must finish now, I _definitely_ have to finish marking those last ten "mini-tests" which my students detest with all their heart but for which they will thank me, one day in the future.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Cilia is getting _so_ big and _too_ soon!" Di exclaimed when she hopped her pretty, plump little niece on her knee while Una put two cups of tea on the table in front of them.

"She _did_ turn one last week, didn't she?" Una replied sweetly, while looking at her daughter with pride and love "And I agree, I think that Cilia changes every day, it seems like only yesterday I heard the nurse saying: "Congratulations, it's a girl!"." she chuckled quietly.

Di smiled at her friend and kissed Cilia's cheek before she put her on the chair next to her, where her tiny book was placed "Time is passing quickly, isn't it?" she sighed deeply.

"It is," Una agreed "-but it passes in a very wonderful way, every day spent with my dear girl and my husband is a day to treasure. I sometimes feel like I don't need anything else in the world _but_ them." she grinned dreamily at Cilia who was giggling at the book she was trying to work out.

Di smiled at her too "I think that your married life changed you, Una." she said suddenly "It changed you for better, you are more open and somehow more happy than I've ever seen you, _or_ Shirley."

Una smiled warmly at Di "I think you might be right." she said "And I like the new me." her cheeks flushed with red a little bit "But there, Di, I wanted to ask you something, before I forget: did you eventually meet Carl's Rosalind?" she asked her.

"No, I haven't met her yet." Di replied in a matter-of-fact tone "But I've seen her just yesterday, with Carl of course but they were talking and I didn't want to interrupt them so I didn't come up and said my "Hello". Besides I had my own marking to do at home."

"And what do you think about her? What's your first impression?" Una asked her again.

"Well, from her appearence I could easily say that she _has_ a style and elegancy in her fingers." she answered and then chuckled "I would never think that Carl would find himself a sweetheart as extravagant as Rosalind Sutton is!" and she slowly stopped laughing as something in her chest started to hurt her.

"I wouldn't say that she _is_ Carl's sweetheart." Una protested calmly "Rosalind and Carl are good friends but I'm sure that Carl would tell me and _especially_ you if there was something else between them than just a plain friendship." she said.

Di sighed "I don't know... But you know Una, when I saw them talking together, I felt that somehow… I'm probably wrong and selfish now but… Somehow they don't suit each other, I think." she said eventually, as she felt that she had to say this thought outloud.

Una smiled at her knowingly "I met Rosalind just today, as you know," she said "-and I must say that I have a simmilar feeling." and she almost wanted to add: "because there is someone _else_ who is meant for _my_ Carl.", but she couldn't say it, not just _yet_.

"But maybe we're just a bit biased." Di said suddenly "I mean, I haven't even _met_ Rosalind yet! Maybe she's as charming and as wonderful as she looks?"

"She definitely is a very interesting person." Una said kindly, picturing Rosalind's pink feather-hat which she couldn't stop looking at when she talked with Carl and Rosalind a few hours earlier that day "But I think that I have to get to know her better before I should speak about her at all."

Di patted Una's hand "Yes, I think that we should get to know her better and _then_ give our opinion." she agreed although somewhere deep down in her heart she couldn't stop thinking about the feeling she got, this ' _worried'_ feeling, when she saw Rosalind's hand resting on Carl's shoulder.

* * *

It was April again, and it rained _and_ rained, as if someone filled up the whole cup of the size of the Earth and tipped it over directly on Glen St Mary.

Di was going back from the school, her arms full of folders and papers, her ancient cloak on her shoulders and a hood on her head, her pretty shoes entirely wet and her eyes exhausted from sleepless nights which were the result of the Queen's exams her students were supposed to be taking the following day. No, Di was _not_ in a good mood that day. On top of everything, Di was "ditched", as she said angrily although she would later regret her tone and the meaning of those words, by Carl who didn't feel well at all for the past few days and took a day off to stay in bed that day, therefore not being able to be Di's companion while walking her back home.

Suddenly a strong wind blew straight on her, causing her to struggle to walk and causing her hood to fall off her head, making her own red hair entirely soaked. Di then, in despair to cover her head, put her hand on her head and one of her folders fell straight into a big muddy puddle in front of her. Just then Di stopped walking and started crying instead, she cried so hard that she couldn't even feel whether it was rain or her own tears which were covering her face.

She slowly picked up the folder from the puddle and wiped it with the corner of her cloak. "Oh, darn it all!" she cursed silently and she put on her hood back again "This is most definitely the _worst_ day of my life!" she cried out. Di carried on with walking and she was glad that she didn't have to meet up with her Mother, Father or Susan when she would reach Ingleside. She knew that Mother and Susan were out for dinner at Faith's house and that her Father was out on the call as he always was during that time of the day.

When she eventually reached the front door of her home, wet and hopeless, she decided on checking the post as something told her to do so, although she didn't know _why_. "To Father," Di started to look through the letters in her hand while she was hiding under the roof of the front veranda "-one letter to Mother from Aunt Leslie, another to Mother from Auntie Diana this time, and…" she stared blankly at the yellow envelope in her hands which suddenly started to tremble "-oh, _it can't be_!" she said breathlessly, sitting herself at the nearest chair.

The letter was from Robert Keats, Ottawa. Di wasn't sure if she could say his name outloud in fear she would wake up from this dream, for it surely _must_ have been a dream? She slowly opened the envelope and unfloded the small piece of paper in her hands, overwhelmed by the sudden wave of warmth passing through her body. She touched the neat hand-writing of the sweetheart she once _could_ call 'her' sweetheart.

"It's not a dream then." she murmured to herself, astonished "Dear Diana," she started to read the letter outloud "You are probably surprised by seeing my name on the top of the envelope that you're now holding in your hands. I must tell you that I _myself_ am surprised by seeing myself being able to, so very easily, write to you right now, after four months of not speaking to you at all.

"Di, those four months of my life didn't have our wonderful conversations, but they _did_ have you, your voice, your frecled face, your eyes, and your red locks which I still find myself unable to stop loving.

"I hope that I won't ask for much if I will ask you to stay in touch with me? As friends, if you'd prefer that I don't mind, as long as I will be able to write to you, to hear your voice properly again, even through the written words.

"I want you to know that I'm doing very well in Ottawa. I re-opned my company and it's doing splendidly, so spledidly I could easily say that I'm slowly becoming quite a wealthy man, and an overworked man at times too. I have my own apartment and friends and my parents near me, but I feel lonely without _you_ , Diana.

"Don't think that I've forgotten what time of year it is for you, I know that your students are taking their exams this month, and I think of them and I hope that they will not make you any less proud than I am of their teacher.

"My heart is waiting impatiently for your reply,

"With all my love,

"Robert Keats" Di whispered his name eventually and her white face turned positively pink all at once. Her lips turned into a smile and her eyes started to sparkle, it was as if a life was put into a ghost and it turned from a grey floating in the air creature into a woman of body and spirit with flaming red hair and rosy cheeks.

Di stood up from the chair and flew upstairs to her room, to her desk. What should she write him, _what_ should she write, _how_ should she write to him? So many questions which couldn't be answered by anyone but Di herself. Her heart was beating fast, she thought as if she staretd a new life, a life she was waiting for her whole life.

Di used many sheets of paper to start her letter to Robert but each of those letters were somehow not right, in her opinion. Finally, she took her laced napkin which she never used before but always treasured as that was a napkin which Robert gave her just one day after the two of them kissed for the first time, and Di wrote on it with satisfaction: "Write to me Robert, write me _a thousand letters_ , as that's how much I need to able to hear your voice once again.". And Di folded the napkin and put it into the envelope, she forgot about her dirty folder, about her students' exams and her soaked hair, she flew downstairs and started running towards the post office feeling as if someone has given her a new life, a new life under the title of " _Love_ ".


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter XII**

"Can you believe that it's May already?" Di questioned Carl while the two friends had their picnic underneath the Tree Lovers "But I'm glad, now that May is here I feel like I've been waiting for it to come in _years_." she smiled at the little flower she held in her hand.

Carl grinned back at Di and put the flower he was holding in his own hand into Di's red hair "There, now May really _is_ here." he said and winked at her.

Di chuckled and touched the flower Carl just put behind her ear "And I can almost feel the summer holidays approaching. I think that I really _do_ need a rest after this particular school-year." she sighed.

"Oh, _yes_ , I remember you telling me about your two students who aren't into learning at all." Carl nodded knowingly "I have about five of those in my own class."

"I suppose that after all, you can't _make_ everyone to be better than they already are." Di added wistfully.

"No, _no_ , I think that you _can_ make everyone to be a better than they already are if you try hard enough, but you can't make everyone to actually _learn_ something." he replied and grinned at his friend.

"Maybe you're right." she said and then stretched her arms "What is your Rosalind doing right now? It's a bit strange that you are sitting with me on a Saturday afternoon, while she is… _What_ is she doing?" she asked again and Carl chuckled.

"She's at her shop. Sewing all the time, or so she told me." Carl answered "I don't know how you women are able to sew so quickly and make such perfectly _perfect_ dresses, jumpers, socks and many other parts of clothing." he said and shook his head.

"Well, we are just a _bit_ more patient and precise than men are." Di raised her eyebrow in a funny way making Carl to laugh again "But I'm sure that if you could try hard enough, you would be able to learn how to sew too."

"I don't think that I'm patient and precise enough to do so, I'm a man after all." Carl said and this time it was Di who laughed.

"But coming back to Miss Sutton." she said again more decidedly and she could almost swear that Carl sighed "When am I going to meet her?" she asked.

"I don't know, dear Di." he replied honestly "She's always busy at her shop when I'm free, I'm busy with school when _she_ 's free and we see each other twice a week at most so you know, I have no idea when you'll actually will be able to _talk_ to her."

"If she's your friend, she must be very special, I think." she said "Tell me something about her, Carl, you _never_ really talk about her!"

"Rosa is a real talker." he said eventually, a small grin appearing on his face "And she's very entertaining because of that, although she sometimes wanders off so much I can hardly hear a word she says!" he chuckled but Di remained serious.

"Carl, you shouldn't speak like that about your friend." she said to him "And Carl… I don't think I can hold this inside any more…" she sighed heavily and Carl's heart started to beat very fast "There's something I want to ask you."

Carl nodded slowly "Yes?" he asked expectantly.

"Are you… and Rosalind… in _love_?" she asked him eventually and her own cheeks flushed with red.

"No, I'm not in love with her." Carl replied finally, his voise sounding quite disappointing "How can I be, Di? When… _when_ … when we meet each other only twice a week?" he said the last sentence very carefully and for the first time in her life, Di noticed that he wanted to say something entirely different and the uncertainty over what he actually wanted to say made her shiver.

"Well, if you _will_ be in love with her one day, will you let me know first?" she asked him hopefully.

"Of course." he assured her with a light smile. Carl slightly opened his mouth as he wanted to ask her about Robert and whether _they_ were correspeonding as lovers _or_ friends but he closed his mouth again, concluding that he really _didn't_ want to know the answer to this question. "But there's someone else who _is_ in love himself." he said eventually and laughed at the very thought "Bruce walks in the clouds for about two days now."

Di laughed too although when she stopped she turned all red "Oh, we're horrible, we shouldn't laugh so hard!" she said but Carl continued on chuckling "But Bruce is just sixteen years old, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is." Carl replied "And that is _why_ it is so funny, Di, so don't worry about laughing at all."

"What's her name?" Di asked him with a grin.

Carl smiled back and chuckled again "Holly." he said and started laughing again. Di punched him in the arm but she couldn't hide her own lips forming into a smile.

" _Carl_!" she scowled at him laughingly "What's so funny? 'Holly' is a very nice name."

"It's just that when Bruce is in his room, and thinks that no one," that's when Carl pointed at himself "-is around, he starts to compose poems for her. And each of those poems stars with " _Oh_ Holly, _how_ can you be so beautiful and _holy_?"." this made Di laugh as well but when they stopped, she looked at Carl again and a sudden question popped into her head, which surprised her just as much as it would surprise her friend.

"Carl?" she asked.

"Hm?" Carl laid down on his side.

"Have you ever been in love?" she asked him silently as if it was something terribly intimate question.

Carl gazed at her in surprise, he wasn't expecting Di to ask him _this_ question, in fact he didn't expect anyone to ask him this kind of question at all. He never truly thought that anyone could even think that Carl could be, or _wanted_ to be in love, apart from his sister Una of course but _she_ knew everything, even though Carl didn't tell her his secret directly.

Carl's cheeks turned fiery but no smile of his appeared on his lips, he looked away instead "Not really… _No_ , not exactly…" he whispered out eventually.

Di almost opened her mouth to ask what does he mean by that when she realised that she knew _exactly_ what he meant. Their conversation carried out for another fifteen minutes and then Carl headed home to do some preparation for his Monday's lesson and Di started heading towards Ingleside, her heart pounding inside her chest, tears springing up to her eyes and her hands shaking.

"Oh, _Carl_!" she whispered to herself helplessly "Why did your heart have to choose _me_?"

* * *

"Oh, Di, please don't worry _so_ much!" Una exclaimed worriedly, while she and Di were out in the garden of Una's and Shirley's house "It's just two children of yours who didn't pass, _out of thirty_! Besides you said yourself that they didn't care about learning one _single_ bit." she said kindly while she was hugging her sister-in-law.

"Oh, I know." Di said eventually and wiped her tears away "But it's just really _sad_ when I think that this time last year we had a party because _all_ of my students passed to Queen's!" she put her hands to her face as she felt how it was turning red all over again.

Una touched Di's hand and smiled at her "Di, you are a wonderful teacher and a wonderful person, please don't think of it that way." she said comforting her as best as she could "You said yourself that everything happens for a reason. So don't think about it anymore, you accomplished so much even with two of your students not passing, dear it's just _two_ pupils and the other twenty eight are grateful for you right now as they know that they wouldn't be able to pass their exams without their teacher." she smiled at Di again.

Di grinned more cheerfully at Una and kissed her cheek softly "Thank you, dear. Even Nan wasn't as comforting and as understanding as you are right now." she chuckled a bit and Una smiled in satisfaction of making her friend feel better "At least it's summer now, and so two months free of working!"

"Exactly, think about how many books you will read and how many records you will be able to memorise, and not about those _two_ students who didn't pass _not_ because of you but because of themselves." Una replied wisely.

Di nodded in agreement "Besides, they must be all happy and joyful now that they don't have to go to school anymore." she said and both she and Una laughed.

"That's so true." Una agreed "Now, Di, tell me what was it that you wanted to discuss with me today?" she asked her.

Di's cheeks turned pink and she looked at the little Cilia playing with her toys on a blanket next to them "It's something about Carl." she said eventually.

Una smiled at Di knowingly "So you know, don't you?" she said calmly, so calmly that Di was surprised.

"You _knew_?" Di asked her in disbelief "How, Una?"

"Carl is my younger brother." she explained "I know all about his feelings and how he expresses and _hides_ them."

"But, Una… I don't know what to do about it!" Di exclaimed "I mean, I do love him as a friend, he's wonderful, but I don't love him… in _that_ way." she looked at Una in despair.

"I know that too, dear Di." she replied warmly "Carl is in love with you, and Di, all I can ask you, if you won't get cross with me, is whether do you think you can ever start love him in that way?" she asked her shyly.

Di grinned weakly at her friend "Una, you're so kind, I would _never_ be cross with you." she said calmly "But, no, I don't think I can ever be able to do that." she sighed "You see, Robert and I correspond through letters since April, for two months almost, and I can feel that both he and I start to send each other not just friendly letters but _love_ letters. It's unexpected but I feel like it is the truth, he writes me many poems and compliments me, and I write him back in the similar tone. I think… I think that I _might_ really love him enough to marry him, if he would ask me to." she said eventually, a secret which only she and her own Mother knew about.

Una grinned at Di sadly "Well, I'm happy that you feel like your mind is made up." she answered "I'm sorry however for my brother, as I don't know if he will ever be able to love someone else in _this_ way." her dark-blue eyes got gloomy, her own mind finiding the feelings and thoughts which her brother had in this moment and which _she_ herself had so many years earlier as well.

Di took Una's hand in hers and squeezed it tightly "I know, and I'm _awfully_ sorry, Una dearest." she said "But how could I possibly marry Carl instead of Robert, knowing that I _can't_ love him in that way at all?" she asked her.

Una smiled and chuckled a little wistfully "Funny, that's what _I_ thought I was doing exactly, when I married my Shirley." she said it so unexpectedly, that Di couldn't be more surprised that Una was herself.

"What do _you_ mean?" Di asked her slowly, her hand slowly coming to her lock of red to put it behind her ear.

Una's cheeks flushed with bright red "I didn't mean it like _that_ , Di, I'm sorry. But…" she sighed softly "-now that I said it I have to explain what I really mean or otherwise I will make you cross with me after all." she sat straight and started to put all of her thoughts and secrets in one place before she opened up her mouth again "At the time when I was marrying Shirley, I _didn't_ love him, not in this way anyway. At least I didn't _know_ that I did love him in that way. You see, Di, I was… I _was_ …" she gulped as warm tears sprang into her eyes "I was in love with someone else before I married Shirley, before he asked me to marry him and even before the war started."

Di's brows furrowed and her eyes became sympathetic and so she put her hand over Una's shaking one "Darling, you don't need to tell me if it hurts you so much. I'm not cross…" she started but Una put her own hand on Di's and shook her head.

" _No_ , Di." she said so sternly that Di almost couldn't recongnise the ever calm and kind Una in the person sitting in front of her "I started and I _have_ to finish now or I will feel cross with _myself_. I… I've never told anyone. Not the whole story, not all of the details. Only Shirley knows, but apart from him, _no one_." she put her hand on her cheek again and grinned weakly "You see, I was in love with… _with_ …" she struggled to breathe and Di could see how nervous she was.

Suddenly, something triggered in Di, like some kind of puzzle she was always looking for when she was laughing or talking with Una, something that was missing in their friendship and something which was _unsaid_. Di's eyes widened and she clasped Una's small hand in hers "Oh, _Una_!" she gasped suddenly "It was… it was _my_ Walter!".

Una looked in the eyes of Di and she smiled, a happy smile, a _thankful_ smile. She let go of all the emotions inside her and tears started to run down her face and tears of Di appeared on her own cheeks "Yes, it was Walter." she said quietly, not believing that after such a long time she said his name outloud again |I was in love with him before the war, during the war, on the day he died and… on the day when I married Shirley." she said eventually.

Di started to sob by then, not because she felt angry that Una married her brother without loving him, but because of how much she realised she missed her older brother who perished on the land of France almost eight years earlier. She and Una put their arms around each other and cried for a little while before Di eventually pulled away and she wiped her own and Una's tears away "Darling, please tell me more." she said eventually.

Una nodded and grinned at Di "When Walter died, I vowed that I would never love anyone again, that I would never marry because _he_ was the one for me." she said calmly now that all of her tears she was holding inside her were almost as good as forgotten "Then Shirley came back from the war, so… manly, and _different_ than he was before. You know that we always knew about each others feelings and thoughts without speaking, but this time I _didn't_ know what was wrong. I thought that it was the effect of war but it wasn't. Shirley himself told me that it wasn't and the day when he told me this was the day when he told me that he was in love with me. On the Christmas Day in 1919." she said eventually, and she grinned weakly at the memory crossing her mind.

"19 _19_?" Di asked "Why, you weren't engaged until the early 1921!"

"Yes and that's because I told Shirley on that Christmas Day that _I_ didn't love him, although it hurt me and it hurt him terribly." Una continued "I couldn't let go of Walter, and the vow I made to myself when he died. But Shirley asked me to try to love him and he promised that he would do anything to make me fall in love with him. I believed him, I knew that he _would_ try everything, and believe me Di, he _did_." she smiled to herself and then at her daughter who was still playing on the blanket next to them "But I was a silly goose and thought that there was just _one_ way of loving. I thought that I loved Walter and that that was the only kind of love that I could ever feel towards a man I would want to marry. I still believed this thought when I agreed to marry Shirley and _when_ I actually married him."

"Why did you agree to marry Shirley if you knew that you didn't love him then?" Di asked her.

"Because Shirley told me that he needed _me_ , and that he wanted me to live with him, to talk with him each morning and each evening before going to sleep." Una smiled and soft warm tears started to form in her eyes again "And I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already did. So we married, and it was a terrifying day for me, because I thought that I _didn't_ love him. But one day about seven months after we married, I had a dream. I had a dream that Shirley died in the war as well as Walter did and when I woke up and I saw Shirley lying next to me, Di, I cried like a baby and I _kissed_ him, I kissed him for the first time, _really_ kissed him." she chuckled sweetly "Shirely was confused and I told him that I love him and I think I must have whispered it many times, because the next thing I remember was me and Shirley crying in each others arms." she smiled radiantly at Di, who had tears in her eyes too "So Di, there isn't just _one_ way of loving. There are, I think, just as many kinds of love as there are people in this world. And… believe it or not, I think that I _still_ love Walter, I always will, but I wouldn't change anything in my life: I wouldn't change my husband and my little girl," she took Cilia in her arms and kissed her cheek "-I wouldn't change anything for the _whole_ world."

Di kissed both Una and Cilia and smiled at them "Oh Una, thank you for telling me this secret of yours." she told her thankfully "I will never tell it to anyone, I won't even write it in my diary, but it will be in my heart forever. And I know that from now on, we really are friends, the "bosom friends" as my Mother would call it." she said joyfully and the two girls hugged each other tightly.

"And we always will be nothing _but_ bosom friends, Di." Una whispered into Di's hair "Whatever will happen, and whatever will cross our paths."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter XIII**

Dear Diary,

July is finally here and nothing can stop me now, not even the overprotective eyes of Susan Baker, to go outside and climb the trees to read books. Yes, I do _exactly_ that! Even right in this moment I sit on the White Lady and write in this journal of mine while feeling how the summer breeze encourages the leaves to dance.

I have some wonderful news to tell and that is that my baby sister (who will _always_ be a baby to me no matter how old she is) is pregnant again and will have her new baby in early February 1925, isn't _that_ exciting? I am very happy for her and Ken, he's literally jumping up and down and he thinks that it's going to be a girl again! As if _he_ could know it better than Rilla! My sister thinks that she will have a boy and I will put more turst into what _she_ thinks and not my brother-in-law does.

The news of the new "Ford baby" brightened up my summer holidays as I'm not very well on the inside, unfortunately. It's all because of this strange situation I am in with Carl. I know that he loves me, and I sometimes have this fear, when I talk with him, that _he_ knows that _I_ know, which is even more terrifying than just simply knowing that he's in love with me. I try to make as much excuses as I can _not_ to meet up with him, not to go for our usual walks across the Rainbow Valley or our small picnics under the Tree Lovers. I simply can't stand looking in his face knowing that he, Carl Meredith, loves _me_.

But this whole situation hurts me incredibly, because I _want_ to go for those walks and make those picnincs with him but I _can't_ , my heart and mind won't let me do it. I don't want our friendship to fall apart and that's why we do meet up but just not as frequently as we used to (the very thought breaks something inside me and this wound can't heal properly, however hard I try).

Una agrees with my decision but I can always see in her eyes this small, tiny even, drop of disappointment (Una would _never_ show whether or not she's disappointed in someone) that I can't even _try_ to love Carl. I can't and I have a good reason for that. In the last week of June, so almost two weeks ago, Robert asked me to be his sweetheart again, through his beautiful letter sent along with wonderfully beautiful boquet of roses. And I answered him with one simple word, " _yes_ ".

I haven't seen Rob since this horrible and heartbreaking day in January, I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye to him before he left for Ottawa. I thought that maybe I could live without him, without his personality around me, without his presence, but when I received this letter in April… It was as if I opened an entirely new book and loved it after reading just the first sentence.

And it must be said that I've never experienced anything more romantic than _this_ correspondence we have since April. Actually, I think I got to know him better through those letters than I did while he was sitting right next to me in Rainbow Valley last year. Maybe that's because we had this kind of correspondence (but not in any way romantic) after the war before even Robert came to Glen.

I'm just very confused at times because I'm really scared that Robert will propose to me again but this time I'm _not_ afraid to say "yes", I'm just scared of the marriage itself. It's such a responsibility! And you _have_ to be sure that the man you marry is "the one and only" or otherwise the married life will be entirely misarable. I talked with my parents about it and my Mother said that she knows how I feel and that I shouldn't be scared if I think that my answer to Robert's proposal would be "yes". However my Father thinks that I should "take it easy and think about it properly before giving an answer to Robert at all". I agree with both of my parents and that doesn't make my situation any better.

See? That's why I miss Carl, I would just tell him about my fears and he would give his advice and then wink at me and just by that I would feel more relaxed and calm (not entirely but at least in some ways). I can't tell Una about my fears, even though she's my bosom friend, as she wants me and Carl to be sweethearts and not "just" friends. I can't tell Nan either, even though she's my twin, as she will say that I _have_ to say "yes" to Robert and that I should stop being a silly goose. Rilla would say just the same, and if I would bring the subject to Susan she would probably turn red and say that she is no expert on love affairs and that I should leave her alone with her cooking.

So my situation with both Robert and Carl is quite frightening and it really does keep my mind busy. However I really _don't_ like this kind of 'busy'.

Well, I think that that's enough for today, Mother said that today we'll make strawberry sponge cake (with Susan of course) and we shall all go with the visit to Rilla's, she has been crying since last week (for every reason you can possibly think of) and so she asked us, the "Three Muskeeters of Knitting" (and that's Mother, Susan and I) to help her knit new baby clothes as well as to help her with knitting a new dress for little Leslie.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Thank you for driving me home, Shirley. I just hope that I won't get soaked by just walking across the road to get home." Di chuckled a bit when she looked out of the window of Shirley's car.

Shirley smiled at her calmly "I don't think you ever did mind getting a little bit soaked." he said and grinned at her knowingly.

Di laughed again and patted his cheek "No, but I do mind when it's the middle of August and the rain should be _forbidden_ till at least October." she said and it was Shirley's turn to chuckle.

"I'll see you tomorrow, won't I?" he asked her when she was getting ready to jump out of the car.

"Of course, Una and I will try out Mary Vance's new recipe for a "lemon chicken" and so I must come and see the result of our cooking." Di replied and kissed Shirley's cheek.

"And I shall taste it." he added and after Di smiled at him, she exited the car and quickly ran under the verandah's roof, not noticing that there was already _someone_ else standing under the verandah's roof and was waiting for _her_ to come home, this someone whom she hadn't seen in almost a nine months' time.

"Diana?" a low, hopeful voice filled Di's head like a scent of perfumes and she turned her head to the place where the voice was coming from.

" _Robert_!" she exclaimed and jumped on her sweetheart's neck with a happy smile spreading across her face "What in heaven's name are you doing on my verandah?" she asked him joyfully when she put her hands on his flushed cheeks.

Before Robert answered, he bent down to kiss her and Di thought that it couldn't feel more right to feel Robert's kiss on her lips. Suddenly all of the fears and doubts about which Di was writng about in her journal and talked over with her parents disappeared entirely and were replaced with romance and pure definition of happiness.

When Robert pulled away and put his arms around her waist, he kissed her forehead once again, his own eyes sparkling with joy "I thought that a week away from work and Ottawa would do me good." he answered her with a bright smile "I wouldn't choose any other place to go for vacation than the town where _my_ Diana of the Rainbow Valley lives."

Di chuckled quietly and caressed his cheeks tenderly "Oh, Rob, you don't know how happy I am to see you!" she exclaimed once again " _But_ where are you going to stay?" she asked him.

Robert took Di's hand in his own and they both sat down at the table next to them "In my old apartment. It's luckily available and it would be nice to stay in a place that I know well." he said.

"I'm glad." Di replied and smiled at Robert "I wish the weather was better and we could go for a walk straight away." she said but the smile remained on her face.

"It's alright, I was enjoying waiting for you to come, because I knocked on the door and I don't think anyone is inside." Robert answered.

"That's because Mother and Susan went to Miss Cornelia's and Father is out on the call with Jem." Di explained "So, Robert, how is Ottawa and how is your company doing?" she asked him.

Robert grinned at her "It's going better than I expected." he said "My company is on the very top of the hill of success and I couldn't be more pleased about it. Ottawa is also not as bad as I thought it would be after me coming back from the quiet and old Glen St Mary." he squeezed Di's hand as she smiled at him "And how is _your_ life going? Is summer going fast for you?" he asked her.

"The summer is going _too_ fast but in a good way as I'm very excited for this new school year." Di said cheerfully and then she opened her mouth slightly as she almost wanted to tell Robert that she and Carl had a small falling out but she quickly bit her tongue. How could she tell her sweetheart about _another man_ being in love with her? So she smiled at Robert instead "But Rob, please tell me that you don't overwork yourself?" she asked him while worriedly looking at his tired eyes.

"I try not to." he replied with a weak grin "My mother would tell you that I'm "killing myself with work", but my father would say that "I just do an ordinary work", so I suppose that they don't have a specific opinion about that. _I_ don't think I do, although I need a bit of rest. Does that satisfy you?" he smiled at her.

" _No_ , but I know that you won't agree with me that you _do_ overwork yourself." Di shook her head disapprovingly and Robert chuckled "Do you want to come inside?" she asked him slowly.

"No, no. Here is fine." Robert said quickly "Besides, I wouldn't want your parents to think that I'm impolite by entering their house without them being inside it. Let's stay here and enjoy the fresh air instead. Look! It stopped raining!" he said excitedly when he looked at the garden in front of him.

Di looked there as well and smiled dreamily, the sun was shining again and the sky turned positively blue once more. Again, the August could be seen and felt everywhere around them. "I suppose it's still a bit too wet to go for a walk without the rain boots though." she shook her head in disappointement.

All of a sudden Robert turned his head and looked in Di's eyes again. Something in his eyes changed, Di noticed, and she remembered _what_ kind of a twinkle his eyes were shining. Di took a deep breath and so did Robert. "Di?" he whispered, taking her hands in his.

"Yes?" she whispered back, her heart beating fast and her eyes shining with hope, joy and fear.

"I know that it's been just a few months since we parted our ways in such a heartbreaking way." he said eventually, examining her hands "But somehow I feel ready to try again, and I want you to know that my feelings towards you have _never_ changed." Robert looked in her eyes again "I love you, Diana Blythe. And it seems that I can't, and that I _don't_ want to, hide it anymore." he smiled at her when Di's cheeks turned suddenly red "Therefore…" he started and put his hand on her cheek "Di, will you marry me? I promise you that I will be _everything_ you want me to be, because I need you, darling." his voice started shaking a little and Di felt as if a lump was stuck in her throat.

Di took a deep breath. There he was, her sweetheart sitting next to her, proposing for a second time with those hopeful and passionate black eyes looking straight into her own, waiting for a long awaited answer. Di took a deep breath again. She knew the answer, _of course_ she did! But _why_ was she so nervous? Was it normal? Was it expected? She didn't know and wouldn't know for a while yet.

Suddenly her whole future life stood in front of her and she, for the first time in her life, could picture it without any struggle. Her wedding day, her long and loving marriage to Robert, her teaching career in an Ottawa's school, and eventually three perfect children of her own sitting on her lap with those blonde curls of Robert's and green eyes of her own. She was ready and she was _excited_.

Di smiled at Robert as tears formed in her eyes " _Yes_ , I will." she whispered and put her arms around her fiance's neck.

Two hours later Mrs Blythe and Susan came back to Ingleside from their visit to Miss Cornelia (or rather _Mrs_ Marshall Elliot), and the sound of Di _singing_ welcomed them back. Anne smiled and she almost knew the answer to why Di was so suddenly cheerful and happy. Susan shook her head but grinned nonetheless while looking at 'Mrs Dr dear' and trying to read her thoughts from her glowing face.

"Oh, you're back!" Di exclaimed and kissed both her Mother and Susan with her apron around her waist, and a bowl and a spoon in her hands "I am preparing a special cake for a special occasion today." she announced, her eyes sparkling.

Anne sat down at the kitchen table and observed how her oldest daughter was putting flour in the bowl "What's the occasion darling, if I may ask?" she questioned her.

Di looked at her and smiled widely, she then looked at the bowl in her hand and at her Mother once again. She groaned but she smiled again and sat down next to Anne and Susan who was still stunned that Di wanted to make a cake by herself, without _her_ help. "I wanted to wait for Father to come but I will tell you _now_. I'm getting married!" Di squeaked and Anne put her arms around her daughter quickly and Susan's eyes turned teary.

"When, Di? And _how_?" Anne asked her daughter again, her own eyes twinkling.

"Robert surprised me by coming to Glen for a week," Di started explaining, holding Anne's and Susan's hands in hers "-we met at the verandah, we talked and suddenly Robert popped out the question again." she proudly put her right hand in front of her with a shining diamond on it "And I knew, I just _knew_ the the answer!" her own eyes were wet once again "Oh, Mother and Susan are you happy for me?" she asked them, worriedly looking at Susan.

"Sweetheart, we love you and as long as you are happy, we are too, maybe even more than you." Anne replied warmly and squeezed Di's hand tightly.

"I know that I will be cross with myself after this conversation is ended." Susan sobbed "Me, the old Susan Baker: _crying_! Oh, Di dear, you're the last one of our children to get married, this house will be so empty after you leave."

Di kissed Susan's cheek quickly "It won't be until next year." she said to her comfortingly "Besides, Ingleside could _never_ be empty, not with all of the small children visiting here more and more often as they grow older."

Susan wiped away her tears and patted Di's hand "You're right, Di dear." she said eventually "Well, we still have a year with you living here and _this_ must do."

"And we will treasure this time as much as we possibly can." Anne added joyfully.

Di put her arms around her Mother and Susan and let her tears of happiness flow down her flushed cheeks "And I will dream about the time _after_ the next summer holidays." she whispered to herself.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter XIV**

Dear Diary,

School has just started (exactly three days ago) and I couldn't be more pleased about my new class. Most of the class are girls and the girls with really interesting names at that. There's Verona, Dominica, Tamsin, Morgan and Sayler, I remember their names but for the life of me I can't remember the faces of those girls yet.

Although I really enjoyed the summer holidays, reading new books, taking walks across the Rainbow Valley and the very wonderful week in August when Robert came to Glen and surprised me… I will miss all of this, but I can't wait for this new school-year as I have a feeling that it will be just perfect.

I still can't quite believe that I'm _engaged_! To Robert! And that I will become _Mrs Keats_ next July. That's why I'm excited for this new school-year as it willl be my last here at Glen's school with my Queen's class. But nevertheless, I am very happy and this week spent with Robert was simply beautiful. I don't think we've ever been so happy together than during that week in August.

Robert is excited for our wedding too even in his last letter he sent me he wrote that he already started looking for our new home but I told him not to hurry, we still have ten more months! But I must say that the very thought of me and Robert living together in our own sweet home in Ottawa makes my head fill up with such _darling_ dreams!

There, I need to go now, I can hear Rilla's voice downstairs and I can see a knitting set at the corner of my eye. I _really_ have to go!

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"I'm so glad that I could take a walk with just you today, Di." Una said quietly to her friend as the two of them walked side by side across the woods "I love the Farm House and spending time with my Cilia but today is the day which I want to spend _just_ with you." she smiled at Di who squeezed her hand gently.

"I'm glad that you could make it." she replied "I always used to walk alone in silence on this day, but I think that I prefer to have you with me. Especially now that I know that both of us loved Walter equally much." Di grinned warmly at Una who put her arm in Di's arm.

"It's been eight years already." Una murmured, her steadfast blue eyes following the red path in front of her "And it feels as if it happened just yesterday."

Di looked in Una's pale face and she felt as if the whole world didn't exist, that it was just the two them, two friends walking together surrounded by the orange and red leaves of autumn, with the soft wind blowing in their faces, as if the Walter's soul was somewhere next to them too, listening and smiling at them. "He watches over us." Di said suddenly "I always only thought that he is, but just now I really _believe_ in it, I can feel that he's near us."

Una looked at Di and smiled with her eyes full of warm tears "I always knew that he is watching over each of us. That's who Walter was, the protective wonderful man with dreamy gray eyes, which I can clearly see in your own eyes, Di." she said and patted Di's hand tenderly.

"I never thought about both Walter and I having similar colour of eyes." Di confessed and then grinned again "But I know that he's happy, up there in Heaven." she smiled through the tears in her eyes and looked up at the clear blue sky with bright white clouds racing each other over it.

"Yes, I think he is too." Una said with warmness spreading across her face.

"I wonder what he thinks about all of the children in our family." Di sighed softly.

Una chuckled lightly "I think that he would like Merry and Gilly. They truly can make everyone happy even if just for one second." she said and Di also chuckled.

"To think about it, Walter actually has much more entertainment in Heaven than we do; he's watching us, what we do, what we think, what decisions we make." Di said with a funny smile and a twinkle in her eyes "But still, I will always miss him and I would much prefer him to be here with us today." she sighed deeply and looked back at Una as she saw how her friend shook her hand and looked at her seriously.

"Di, don't tell me that you lost faith. You _musn't_. Promise me that you never will." she said passionately, just as passionately as she told Di her secret story a few months earlier.

Di kissed Una's cheek gently and smiled at her assuringly "I promise, dear Una. I will never loose faith." she said and the two friends continued on walking through the woods and somewhere out of their reach the black-haired boy of gray poetic eyes was smiling at them and his eyes weren't just dreamy but they were also very proud.

* * *

Dear Diary,

I sincerely apologise for not being able to write for… _oh dear_! Almost two months! How could I possibly manage that? I am very sorry, but I have an explanation: so much things have happened that my mind wasn't here in Canada or anywhere else in the world, that's for certain.

The very first week of November is gone, and I'm quite sad because of that as the trees loose their leaves, the leaves which give beauty into the world and its colours bring back life to each of us.

I am very busy at school, the class of 1924/1925 is extremely exhausting. All of my students are lazy and they don't pay attention in lessons, the boys tease the girls all the time and the girls complain to me but at the same time, I can clearly see, _want_ the boys to tease them and pay the attention to them _all the time_ (which is very funny at times, but I can't laugh in the classroom, and this makes my teaching even harder). It's not that everyone isn't into learning, but most of my students aren't. However, the interesting thing is that their 'mini-tests' are going really alright, only in the classroom they can be very tiring because they're talking and laughing all the time.

There's this one girl whom I mentioned in my previous diary entry. Her name is Verona and she is the sweetest student I have ever had. She's quiet and always sits near the window, looking at the clouds with a dreamy look on her frecled face. I once thought that she wasn't paying attention to my lessons but I was wrong, she is my best student and achieves the best grades. The other day I asked Verona what is she thinking about when she looks out of the window and she replied that she thinks about how does it feel like to be a bird and fly so high that the ground would look like something unimportant and insignificant. From that day on, we became kindred spirits.

I will give another reasons why I was so busy that I couldn't write in my diary in almost two months. The second reason, apart from the teaching, is the news of Persis and Una being both pregnant again. Of course it isn't an explanation why I haven't written in here for so long, but this time it really is.

Persis writes to me very long letters, I suspect about three times a week, and I always have to reply to her the day after I get it or otherwise I will get another letter from her asking if she offended me or whether I'm cross with her _and_ whether that's the reason I haven't written to her "in such a _long_ time". I love Persis but sometimes, I think, it would be more beneficial for her if she would just come to Canada for at least four months and talk face-to-face with all of us instead of writing those extremely long letters.

Una is very excited about her second baby as well and she asks me to come over "for a little while" each day. I don't mind at all, but when we start talking about her new baby, or Cilia, or any other topic that comes into our minds after those, I end up going back home so late that I can't even see whether I wrote my name correctly.

I have very interesting and very relieving news about Carl too. He got _engaged_ to Rosalind three weeks ago. That's the interesting part as I wouldn't think that Carl thinks about "Ros", as he calls her, seriously. I was surprised and I asked him whether or not he thinks that she's the one, he simply smiled at me and said "Doesn't Mrs Rosalind Meredith sound perfect?" with this wink of his that always makes me laugh.

This made me think that maybe Carl didn't love me as much as I thought he did. I'm saying this sentence in the past tense as he _must_ have stopped loving me when he got engaged, right? I'm quite sure about that or otherwise Carl would be simply unreasonable and he isn't, he might be a bit wicked and funny as he is, but _not_ unreasonable.

I talked about it with Una and she shook her head and said that as she was sure about him loving me but she's not sure about this engagement at all and that's why she doesn't know the answer to my question. So that's another reason that makes this engagement of Carl's quite strange and it stands next to the big question mark in my mind.

But the relieving part is that because now both Carl and me are engaged and "to be married", we spend more time together and it all feels like the old good times again. I almost cry from happiness as I write this! I eventually gained my friend back and I couldn't be more happy about it, that's why the question mark standing next to Carl's engagement is hardly visible for me right now, when both me and Carl talk and laugh and come back home together after school like we used to.

Carl seems really happy, whenever we meet he smiles and we talk about everything we used to talk about before… well, before I started avoiding him so much. I asked him when the wedding will take place and he said that it will be next year in the summer, and so very near my own wedding. I am excited to meet his Rosalind and I still can't quite believe that I haven't met her yet but then, when I will meet her I'm sure that it will be a wonderful meeting.

But, as always, good moments sometimes tie up with some other more sorrowful moments which can be really stressful.

Robert and I talked on the 'phone a few days ago and I was really surprised that he called me because we made a pact that we will only call each other if something very important is happening. So I had a lump in my throat when I picked up the reciever but Robert sounded really cheerful and that's why I was surprised even more. He called because his uncle Ben died last week and apparently left him a big mansion in his will. That would be simply splendid if Robert didn't add at the end: "in London".

I must say that I don't think I've ever felt so red and nervous in my whole life when I heard him say that the mansion is in London, _England_. I told him quietly that I don't think I'm quite happy with us moving away so far away from home and across the _ocean_ for that matter.

Robert was disappointed and he was a little angry, he said that he would be able to open up his company back in London and that in such a place like London, his company would be prospering even more than in Ottawa, and with such a big mansion just for us, we would be as happy as no one else in the world is. _But_ I told him that I certainly wouldn't be happy with my family so far away. What if someone would get ill and I wouldn't be there to help? What if all of my friendships with Nan, Una, Carl and everyone else would fall apart while I would be away?

All in all, Robert said that he will give me time to think about it of course. After all, our wedding won't take place until July next year, but still, this decision _has_ to be made and I am simply shaking from doubts and fears. I told Mother about it but I'm keeping it a secret from everyone else for now. Mother thinks that it would be a really fantastic opportunity for Robert but she also said, with hardly visible tears in her eyes, that it would be dreadfully hard for her to let me go so far away with her permission.

So I simply don't know what to do and probably I still won't know what to do on the day when the decision will have to be made. _Why_ is my life so complicated? I understand that most of time life _is_ and will be complicated but… I always thought that _my_ life would be the easiest one posssible and that I wouldn't have to worry about anything. How _wrong_ I was!

Well, Christmas is slowly approaching and I think that this year went definitely _too_ fast, _definitely_ too fast. But I will need some of the Christmas spririt to lift me up a little bit.

Yours,

Di Blythe


	15. Chapter 15

**Hello everyone! I wanted to thank you all for reading this story, also for following and favouriting it :) I very much appreciate all of the reviews I'm getting from you (special thanks go to Kim Blythe, Alinyaalethia, IrishPrincess, AvonleaBlythe and hecalledmecarrots), I love hearing what you think about this story. As it's the Christmas Day today, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy holidays! :) - Bathsheba Blythe**

 **Chapter XV**

Dear Diary,

We had Christmas dinner yesterday and I must say that for the first time in my life, I didn't _quite_ like it. Of course I _did_ like some of it. How can I not like spending time with my entire family and talking, laughing and singing with them? But something about _this_ Christmas dinner was different and this something or rather some _one_ is called Rosalind Sutton.

Yes, Carl brought his fiancee with him to our family Christmas dinner last night to introduce her to our whole family which soon will be her own as well. My first impression of Rosalind was "Oh, she _definitely_ has her own interesting way of style". Rosalind wore a bright green dress which caused Susan to turn positively red from the urge to say that this length of a dress (which was just reaching her knees) is highly inappropriate. She also had a thick brown fur around her shoulders (which to be honest was making me feel uncomfortable), black gloves (which she was wearing during the _whole_ evening) and a very intriguing, also green, hat with a black feather sticking from the very top of it.

Rosalind, despite her oddly looking wardrobe choices, is extremely beautiful. I don't think I have ever seen a woman as beautiful as her to be honest. She has really short curly brown hair, with black and auburn highlights, her eyes are positively green (like her dress and a hat were) and her mouth is so perfectly shaped that I could watch her lips moving while she's talking, all day long.

All in all, Rosalind is really charming and her British accent is very delicious I must say. However there's a "but" unfortunately. Although Carl's fiancee seems really friendly and nice at first, you can hear in her voice and her comments how highly she regards herself. Maybe because she has her very own fabric shop? Maybe because she is from Britain? I'm not sure why but the way she smiles at everyone and pats Carl's cheek when she thinks (or maybe she doesn't care about it at all?) nobody is looking, made me feel unwelcome and uncomfortable in my _own_ house!

"Of _course_ , Mrs Blythe, yes I make my own clothes, I _never_ wear anything that wasn't designed and sewed together by my own hands." or "My _darling_ Di, I don't know how you do it, I would never be able to work with children _every_ single day. They are so sweet and so _annoying_ at the same time, aren't they? I _love_ children of course, but I wouldn't be able to work with them, not ever." or "It's such a shame that you can't wear pink, Di darling, I do love your hair it's so… _fiery_! But good grief, it's _such_ a shame! Pink is the best colour in the world!", and many other comments as well.

It's not that Rosalind isn't nice at all, she really _is_ , but sometimes she just doesn't make me feel quite comfortable and relaxed. She simply likes to be in the centre of attention, and never me or anyone in my family is like that and that's probably why I felt this way about her. Carl was acting normally and I think that when he talked with Rosalind _she_ was calmer and quieter than when she was talking with me or anyone else for that matter, so possibly Carl makes her a much better person than she already is.

But the day was wonderful anyway, and I decided not to let any Rosalind Sutton, even if she's the fiancee to my dearest friend, to ruin Christmas and my very last as Diana _Blythe_ at that. I tried to convince Robert to come for Christmas and he tried to convince his parents to let him come but they had an argument, apparently, and so Robert had to stay at his home in Ottawa, "utterly disappointed and quite frankly furious" as he wrote to me in his last letter.

But he _did_ send me a Christmas gift and I don't think that I can ever be more thankful and more happy about it. "Over the moon" would describe it. Robert sent me a handmade scarf, a _silk_ one with beautiful floral pattern all over it, which he found somehwere on the market and the date on the label was " _1893, Paris_ "! It is simply beautiful and it goes perfectly with my purple dress with a sweetheart neckline. He did also send me a wonderful Christmas card, chocolates and earings, _pearl_ ones. Even my Mother's eyes shone when she was admiring them and I immediately told her that whenever she would like to wear them, I allow her whole-heartedly.

Rilla was very moody most of the time and Ken was rolling his eyes once in a while, making everyone laugh every single time he did. Rilla literally can't move anymore, or so she said, and she certainly looks like she really couldn't move in any way. Gilly was telling everyone that he wants to get a brother for Christmas and was very disappointed that when it was time to go home, none of his unpacked presents were a little brother, this dear monkey!

Blythe was quietly playing with Jake and Walt most of the time, _under_ the table, making dear Susan to get all jumpy and looking underneath the table once in five minutes to see whether someone didn't step on them, as if anyone would! Julia and Rose were chasing each other for a while and then the two ladies sat down on Mother's and Father's laps and talked to them in their own language, while my parents listened, nodded with understanding and answered them in English this time. However Cilia and Leslie were both being passed between each of our arms as everyone wanted to hold a baby during the Christmas dinner, as it somehow fills up the magical atmosphere of Christmas.

I talked mostly with Nan and Una during the evening, and we laughed and _laughed_ together. Nan and I already paired up all of the children, and we already established with Una that her baby will be a boy and that she will give him a very bold and romantic name, and Una shook her head while she giggled and blushed, and said that she secretly feels that it's going to be a girl, and somehow I believe her, even if Nan doesn't.

It was a shame that I didn't get the chance to talk with Carl so much, but Rosalind was enough to entertain him, and he's _such_ a good listener! She talked and talked and gesticulated and Carl was nodding and asking quiestions, I was surprised that he was interested in the making of a "blind hem".

But when we finally got a chance to speak to one another when Rosemary stole Rosalind away to the kitchen and Carl and I went together to play with Gilly and Merry in "Pirates", Carl started chuckling all of a sudden and when I asked him why did he start to chuckle, he whispered into my ear: "Dear me, it's been exactly a year since our secret mistletoe-kiss!". And I started to laugh too, although I think we both didn't quite know for what reason other than to cover my own emabarrassment because now I know that when Carl kissed me under that mistletoe a year ago, he was actually _in love with me_.

Anyway, I should probably finish here, we are going to the Manse today and we will have another family meeting again, so I actually can't wait!

After all Christmas did lift my spririts up, and I keep my own promise to myself that I _won't_ think about my worries until January next year.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Di, you're a dear for making me tea and bringing some of those biscuits. And I really shouldn't allow you to do it, while you're a guest in my own house, but because I'm a size of an orange, I _will_ allow you. Thank you." Rilla said while sitting comfortably on the sofa with her feet on the chair and her hands on her round belly.

Di smiled at her baby-sister and she put the tray on the table in front of her and then put a scarf around her shoulders and shuddered "My pleasure, dear sister." she said and shivered again "It really is a cold day today, isn't it?" she asked.

Rilla sighed wistfully "I know, _very_ cold. Even for January it seems extremely cold, _too_ cold even." she looked behind Di, outside the window and gasped "Good grief, look Di! It's almost like a snowstorm!" she exclaimed.

Di looked around and was also quite astonished by seeing the perfect colour white everywhere just outside the walls of the House of Dreams "Dear me, I wonder how Ken will get home in just three hours time?" she asked doubtfully.

Rilla shook her head and took a cup in her hand "No idea. I'm glad that the kids are at Ingleside with Mother and Susan though. Mother and Susan are more capable of chasing Gilly around the house while carrying Leslie and talking to Blythe about elves and dwarves." she chuckled and so did Di.

"I suppose that you really aren't capable of such things anymore Rilla." she agreed "But I'm happy that you wanted me to come and have some tea with you, as we don't see each other so very often nowadays, do we?" she squeezed Rilla's hand gently.

Rilla grinned at her older sister "That's true, and I truly regret it." she said "But I know that you are busy with school and your students, and I know that _I'm_ busy with my three and now fourth baby on the way." she giggled like a little girl and Di smiled at her.

"And I still remember how you were always so against babies or children of any kind." she said with a soft chuckle "Now look, you're a dear housewife and a mother to almost _four_ children!" she patted Rilla's big stomach.

"Yes, I know that I didn't like children when I was younger but now I simply can't imagine a world without my little babies." she sighed contentedly when she looked at the prepared baby clothes lying on the chair next to her and Di. She then looked at Di with an impish twinkle in her hazel eyes "How are the plans for _your_ wedding going, Diana?" she asked her with a raised eyebrow.

Di laughed quietly "To be honest I haven't made so much plans yet." she confessed "The wedding will be in July so we still have six months to go, Rilla."

Rilla shook her head "Oh, Di, how _much_ you miss!" she sighed "You have to have some kind of a plan in your head, don't you?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, a _bit_ of course." Di blushed a little but even just a "little" made her sister satisfied "We're not sure on the actual date yet other than the beginning of July. I plan on having the wedding in the Ingleside's garden of course and Robert approves whole-heartedly. I want little Rose and Julia to be my sweet darling flower-girls and I want Susan to bake the wedding cake. That's it for now I'm afraid." she said and chuckled as she saw Rilla's disappointed face.

"When _I_ was getting married, I had everything planned actually even _before_ Ken came back from the war, you know." Rilla said cheerfully "Although I put the thought of a wedding to Ken at the back of my mind, I knew that it was _always_ there."

"Well Rilla, you were just twenty when you married Ken." Di smiled at her warmly "And by July I will be…" she gasped "-I will be _thirty_ years old!"

Rilla started laughing again and put her hand on Di's terrified face "Di, stop this nonsense, thirty years is _nothing_ at all, especially when you don't look like you are thirty and you don't behave like you're thirty either. And you _don't_ , Diana Blythe." she said.

Di looked back at Rilla and grinned at her "Thank you, darling sister. I think I'll believe you." she said to her.

"Now," Rilla said decidedly "-would you terribly mind if you checked whether the kitchen window is closed or not? I remembered it just now and I'm afraid that before I'll stand up, I will collapse on this sofa again."

Di chuckled as she stood up from her chair "I'll check." she said and before she crossed the kitchen's door, she turned around to Rilla again " _Don't_ move." she said seriously and left the room having Rilla laughing again. Di checked the window, it was closed and she joyfully returned back to the living room, but her smile vanished when she saw how pale and terrified Rilla looked. "Rilla? What's the matter?" she asked her worriedly and sat beside her on the sofa.

"Di," Rilla replied dully, her eyes widening as she stared out of the window in front of her and held her stomach tightly "-do you think that Jem would be able to arrive here in less than an hour?" she asked.

Di's eyes filled with terror and fear as she followed Rilla's look and looked on the white world outside of the window "I don't think that he would arrive here today _at all_ , Rilla." she whispered back and looked at Rilla again "Rilla, please don't tell me that that's what I think it is."

Rilla squeezed Di's hand and looked her in the eyes worriedly "I'm afraid Di," she whispered "-that the baby "number four" will arrive two weeks before it was meant to."

* * *

Dear Diary,

I delivered a baby yesterday. Rilla went into labour at midday and there was a snowstorm, the 'phones were down and the roads were full of snow in which you could simply _drown_. Ken was at work, but I was thanking God that the children were safetly at Ingleside.

Rilla and I were terrified but as soon as I got Rilla upstairs and prepared the hot water and towels, I felt that I _could_ do it as I simply _had_ to. I was afraid that Rilla wouldn't trust me, as I hardly (to this day of course) knew _how_ to deliver a baby. But when I came back with the towels and hot water, Rilla clung to my hand and said sternly: "I trust you, Diana Ruby Blythe and I believe that with the two of us we _can_ do it.". And she was right, _we did it_ , almost without any trouble.

It all happened so quickly! Rilla's labour stared at midday as I said, and the baby Owen arrived to this world at five in the afternoon. When the baby was born and I started washing him and he cried so helplessly and so _loud_ , both me and Rilla cried and laughed together at the same time. It is a real miracle, the baby is healthy and the mother is healthy and safe too, what else could matter to me in that moment?

Rilla instructed me what to do during and after the birth and I must say that I feel almost like a professional after today, although it's probably silly to say a thing like that when the only time I was really near medicine was today, when I delivered my sister's new baby.

Rilla is in love with her baby of course and I must say that so am I. Owen (although Rilla thought that if it was a girl she would have called her Diana for me) has red hair and gray eyes, the shade of Ken's of course. He is dimpled and has chubby hands and is all perfect to both me and Rilla.

When Owen was about an hour old, and Rilla was satisfied with her cuddles with him, she fell asleep in the bed, as a happy new mother. I was left alone with Owen, who was also asleep in my arms, as I was afraid to leave him in the crib (I wanted to have him near me to check on him once in a while, as I still wanted a doctor to look at him and examine him propoerly and not just any school teacher like me). I was sitting downstairs, near the 'phone and the window, and I was waiting for someone to call, for Ken to come back home from work, for the snow to stop flying down from the sky and for Owen to open his eyes just so that I could look at him and talk to him as all I wanted to do was to talk to him as if he was at least three years old.

For just one precious moment I almost thought that Owen was actually _my_ baby, and in that moment the sudden wonderful thought and fact struck me: I _could_ be holding my own small baby in a year's time, I could, couldn't I? The thought fills me up with such delightful dreams! That's another dream that makes me so excited for my wedding to Robert in six months time.

Newborn babies smell like Heaven I suppose, they smell _so_ wonderfully! My Father laughed when I told him that just a few mintes before I went to sleep last night, but he agreed with me, but then who wouldn't?

Anyway, it stopped snowing at eight in the afternoon, Owen was still sleeping in my arms, and Rilla was upstairs, softly snoring from tiredness. And an hour later a 'phone started ringing and I felt as if I was awoken from a dream, although I didn't sleep at all. It was my Mother who was worried about me not coming home although she knew that I couldn't. I told her the story and I said that Owen was born and she immediately called on Father and Jem to come to the House of Dreams, and then while I was waiting for my Father and my brother to come, I talked with her and we both cried and laughed like a new grandmother and an auntie should.

When Father and Jem came, I felt as if the world suddenly made sense. I felt extremely relieved when I put Owen in the hands of Jem and let Father upstairs in Rilla's bedroom to check on her as well.

Jem nudged me at the side and said in his funny voice "Good job, little sister. I don't know _why_ you didn't take medicine in Redmond, you would have been brilliant in it!." and I laughed with him joyfully when he said that Owen was fine. Then Father came downstairs and said that Rilla was fine as well and then he held his newest grandchild and had his arm around my shoulder and he whispred into my ear "Di, you are truly a remarkable woman." and I cried again (I cried today so many times it's almost terrifying).

A few minutes afterwards, Ken arrived, his face flushed with red and he was panting as like he said "he was _running_ back home", dear husband of my sister! Ken wasn't even surprised when he saw me holding a newborn baby in my arms, he said "Well, I should have known that when I _won't_ be at home, my new child will come into this world without any warning" but then he held Owen and kissed him and the three of us (Jem, Father and I) were happy and ready to go back home.

It took us ages and ages to come back to Ingleside but we did it somehow. When Father and I entered the house, Susan and Mother were still up and they listened to everything that happened yesterday and then we all sat in the living room and laughed together from happiness.

Then it was time to go to bed and for the first time in years I felt like I was a little girl again, for every single room of the upstairs bedrooms were filled again. Blythe was sleeping in the old room of Jem, Walter and Shirley; Gilly slept in Rilla's old bedroom and in my own bedroom there was dear Leslie sleeping in _my_ own bed. I cuddled up with her and we slept like this till ten o'clock in the morning.

Now I have to go, as it's almost two in the evening and Ken just called Mother to let her know that the children can go back to the House of Dreams and meet their new brother. I am quite sad that they do have to go, but what can I do? At least I had this one night yesterday when I felt like a small girl again, and I _loved_ this feeling.

Until next time,

Yours,

Di Blythe


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter XVI**

Dear Diary,

February 1925 is finally here, I say 'finally' because the snowstorm is eventually over and it seems that it won't come back sooner than during the winter next year. I am glad because of it, as now I can easily get out of home and run for a visit to Nan, Una or Rilla. I am especially fond of visiting Rilla now as I want to see Owen every single day since he came into this world, me being the very witness.

Owen is so smiley but he's the quietest child I have ever seen, even Cilia isn't as quiet as Owen is. But he loves to cuddle and he loves to be rocked in his cot even if he doesn't wish to be asleep at all. Rilla and Ken are in love with him and so are my parents, well, _everyone_ is to be honest. Gilly is over the moon that he got a brother after all but he told Owen very seriously that he should have come during Christmas as that's what _he_ wanted. Blythe and Leslie are very interested in this new infant-brother in their house and they love to talk about him to each other in their own lovely language.

Talking of babies, Una and Shirley are starting to get really ready for their second arrival and they bought the sweetest little cot, I must say. You can't see Shirley without a smile on his face whenever he's around Una or Cilia these days and I always chuckle, I will always think of him as my "baby-brother" although he is a husband _and_ a father, not to mention that he's almost twenty-eight years old. Una is very excited about the second baby too and she announced that this time, whether or not it is a boy (like me and Nan suggested) she will give this baby a name which won't be anyone else's name, and I'm quite eager to learn all about this peculiar _new_ name.

But to be quite honest, I came here to write about something else than the stop of snowing and how beautiful baby Owen is and how excited Shirley and Una are about their second baby which should come into this world in three months time. The reason for this diary entry is mainly the date that Robert and I chose for our wedding.

We talked on the 'phone three days ago and we decided on the middle of July. I always thought that the summer wedding will be something of a dream and apparently Robert thinks so as well. I don't think about the dress and the veil and anything like that _yet_ , I don't know why I still don't really feel like I will get married in just a few months time but I'm sure that I will get excited enough in several weeks or so.

No, I still haven't decided whether or not I want to or rather I'm _capable_ of moving to London with Robert after our wedding. I don't know, I don't know and _I just don't know_. I am thinking about it every single day but each time I go to bed I miserably realise that all this thinking goes to nothing at all. Robert _does_ put some pressure on me but I don't blame him at all because I put this pressure on _myself_ too, after all we do have to decide and Robert said that it would be good if we would decide in a month's time, and I agree with him although quite reluctantly.

There's no point in me talking about it with my parents, Nan or Una or anyone else really because everyone will want me to stay and I know and I _feel_ in my heart that this decision has to be made by myself and by myself only, without anyone trying to change my mind (I'm quite sure that Carl would do everything to do just that, that's how he is after all).

An interesting fact is that just a day after Robert and I announced the official date for our wedding, Carl _also_ decided on a date for his wedding with Rosalind, exactly a month after mine and Robert's wedding, in the middle of August this year.

This makes me feel quite uncomfortable, and I don't know _why_ … Well I _do_ know 'why' but I believe that it's such a stupid thought. Carl _can't_ still love, can he? He _is_ engaged and he _is_ going to be married soon, just a month after _I_ will be married. The thing that brought me to this strange thought is that Carl never really wants to talk about either mine or his approaching wedding and suddenly, from nowhere, he announces, straight after my ownannouncement, when his wedding is going to take place.

I really don't understand what's going on with him. Whenever I start saying something like "Say Carl, do you think that violets or maybe roses would go more nicely with my hair for my wedding-day?", like friends do (don't they?) and then Carl quickly looks on the road and replies "I think that you should decide this yourself, Di. _Now_ , did Verona had a conversation with you today, did you talk about clouds or Shakespeare?" and that's how he changed the subject so very suddenly, not even looking at me once.

That's why I don't know what to do or think about him. It's even more frustrating because he is one of my dearest friends and I think that he hides something away from me. I don't, again, think that he still loves me. Although… oh, I simply _don't know_!

I desperately want to talk about it with someone, and I did talk it over with Mother yesterday but like she said herself, she can't give me any advice for she doesn't even know half as much details about this whole situation as I do, besides she hardly really knows Carl.

I sometimes think that Carl _still_ loves me, even though I'm quite certain that he _doesn't_ , but what else would explain that he's so shy around me when we talk about my wedding to Robert or his wedding to Rosalind?

Talking of Miss Sutton, Carl hardly ever mentions her in our conversations, and when he does he doesn't really say anything… I don't know… _Romantic_ about her. When I talk about Robert I always say something lovely about him (I can't really say 'romantic', I didn't inherit Mother's imagination as Nan and Walter did, sadly) but Carl never really says anything of this sort about his "Ros". It's not that Carl doesn't say anything about her or that he's not nice when he talks about her, not either of those things. It' just that when he talks about her, he says something ordinary never something like I would say about Robert whe he writes to me another letter for example.

But never mind, I will discover what to do to make Carl sit down with me and tell me what lies on his soul, earlier than he thinks.

Now I shall run downstairs and ask Mother to go with me to Rilla's today, she invited me, Nan, Una and Faith for a knitting session and I'm quite sure that Mother would prefer to use this time to play with her grandchildren as well.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Isn't she a sweetie? And little Nellie looks _just_ like Persis, I can tell even if it's just a photograph." Nan said when she was looking at the small picture she held in her hand. Di, Nan, Faith and Una were sitting together in Una's living room with a tray full of brownies and cups of tea standing on the table in front of them. Faith brought her children over and so did Nan and that was the main reason for the room being quite loud and quite full of people as well. Merry, Walt and Jake sat together on the floor and were playing with their toys, however the "ladies" and so Cilia, Rose and Julia were sitting on the sofa and were playing with their own dolls.

"Little Nellie looks like a darling." Faith agreed with her sister-in-law "Persis must be so very proud."

"Rilla should be here with us and tell us more about what she heard from her sister-in-law, she must know much more about little Nellie than all of us put together." Nan said and looked over at Una "Did she decide here today to come as well?"

Una shook her head "Unfortunately she says that she has no patience for bringing all of her children and now a newborn, all the way to Farm House especially when Gilly has a cold." she explained.

"Rilla has four children, I still can't believe it." Di said suddenly with a soft grin on her face.

"And can you believe that me, your _own_ twin, has two children of her own?" Nan asked Di with a raised eyebrow.

All the women-folk chuckled together "No, I shall never believe it, and neither will I ever believe that we are grown-up women." Di replied and put her hands on her cheeks dramatically "Look at me girls, I'm almost _thirty_ years old!"

The girls laughed together again "No one thinks about your age, Di." Faith said to her kindly "No one does anyway, not now when you're getting _married_." Faith and Nan squealed in delight leaving both Di and Una laughing together.

Di looked down at her diamond ring which was shining on the fourth finger of her right hand and she smiled shyly, her cheeks flushing with red "You were all waiting for this day, weren't you?" she asked her friends.

"Desperately." Nan breathed out and the laughter filled the room again "And just wait a few more years and then all of us will say "Oh, I can't believe that Di has _four_ children of her own!"."

Di kissed Nan's cheek quickly and she giggled like a little girl "Thank you Nan darling, but I don't think I would be quite capable of having four children of my own." she said to her.

"You'll change your mind alright." Faith added and nudged her at the side "I always thought that there wouldn't be a better than just me and Jem living in one house together forever and ever. But when I had my twins and then my Julia, I can easily say that it just gets better when you have children running around your house." she said and she and Nan and Una looked at each other knowingly and then they looked at the bunch of kiddies playing together on the floor next to them.

Di looked away, as she felt in that second that she didn't belong to their group and even if it was just for a second, she didn't feel comfortable with that thought at all. "Well," she replied hurriedly and smiled at all of them warmly "-time will show, won't it?" she said.

"Di…" Nan suddenly put her hand on her twin's and looked in her eyes seriously "I know that maybe I should wait for you to tell me yourself but I must ask you or otherwise I shall go mad."

Di looked at her sister worriedly "What is it?" she asked.

"Are you going to move to London?" Nan asked eventually and all of the eyes were focused on Di, and it almost seemed to her that even the children became silent and looked at her as well.

She took a deep breath and smiled lightly at them "I wanted to tell you tomorrow, at the family dinner, but I suppose that I can tell you now anyway." she began "We're not going to leave Canada for a long time, that's what I'm sure of." and she smiled radiantly, something in her chest allowing her to breathe again.

The girls immediately jumped on Di with hugs and kisses and tears in their eyes. Di let herself cry out all of the tears she was holding inside because she was afraid that she would move to London after all and leave all of her friends and family. "I don't think I've ever felt as light as I do now." Nan exclaimed when everyone sat down again.

"Was it really hard for Robert to agree with your decision?" Una sked Di warmly, her own eyes shining with joy.

"He was disappointed, he didn't say it but I could hear it in his voice when we talked it over on the 'phone." Di replied softly "But I couldn't leave all of you for a land I don't even know." she smiled at each of them.

"We are so happy, Di." Faith squeezed her sister-in-law's hands "So you will live in Ottawa then? And what about the house in London?" she asked her curiously.

"Yes, we will live in Ottawa instead." Di grinned again "Robert is already looking for a house there, I don't think we will buy it at first, I think we'll just rent it for now and then we might buy a house of our own when we are more settled. But Robert said that he will probably rent out the house in London as well, as he thinks that it would be really wonderful if we could go there together for a visit one day. And I must say that I agree." she smiled again as she saw her sisters with smiles of relief on their faces.

"Ottawa is not so far away after all." Nan said as if to herself "Not as far away as London is anyway, so I'm glad Di, I'm more than glad actually, I'm over the moon _and_ the stars." she said and kissed Di on her cheek.

"So are we." Faith and Una said in the same time and they all embraced each other. Di felt as if her heart was slowly sinking down again at the very thought of her leaving her dear sisters even for a city which isn't as far away as London is.

But then she decided to enjoy the moment of being together with them and so she smiled to herself as she saw the heads of brown, black and her own red hair right in front of her eyes. "And so am I, and so am I, girls." she whispered.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter XVII**

"Di, stop thinking about it, you will drive yourself mad with worrying." Carl said soothingly to his friend whom he was accompanying during a walk to the post office at the end of the warm and inviting month of April.

Di sighed and put her arm in Carl's "I guess that I shouldn't worry so much." she replied "But then this class was a real hard work for me, and I'm not sure about at least a half of my students whether or not they'll pass to Queen's." she sighed wistfully.

Carl sighed too, as he ran out of ideas how to cheer her up, and he tried his very best to do so "Di, just stop thinking about it." he said eventually "You know that you did your best, but now it's all in their hands, not yours." he smiled at her warmly and Di managed to smile back, making him to sigh with relief.

"Thank you Carl, I needed to hear that." she replied more contentedly "But I'm such a stressed person, _you_ know that yourself."

Carl chuckled "Yes, I do know that, _too_ well to be honest." he said and Di chuckled quietly too "But really, you'll be fine, whatever will happen."

"I know, I know." she said "Carl is that possible that it's almost May already? I can swear that it was New Years Eve two days ago." she grinned at him, forcing herself not to let her mind wonder off to the small classroom in the Glen's school.

"I actually don't think that it's May "already"." he answered "Those five months were actually quite slow for me."

"Really?" Di asked him with surprise "Why?"

"I'm not sure." he replied dully, although he knew quite well why those months were so monotonous for him, and how much he would love the time to fly faster "But I'm glad anyway, that the spring is coming I mean." he smiled at her.

Di smiled back radiantly "Yes, I _did_ miss spring." she replied dreamily "I missed the softness of the air and the scent of flowers filling each room of Ingleside."

Carl nudged her at the side "You're quite a romantic person aren't you, Di?" he asked her impishly.

Di laughed "Of course I am, and I believe that _everyone_ has a soul of a romantic but just _some_ people don't want to acknowledge it." she said with a raised eyebrow, looking meaningfully at Carl.

He chuckled "Of course you would look at _me_ while saying this." he said "But I think you're wrong Di, _don't_ look at me like that! I just don't think that everyone has a romantic personality, and it's better this way, everyone is different then."

Di grinned at him lightly "Maybe you're right." she tip-toed to reach his ear "Or maybe not." she whispered and she was lucky that she couldn't see how in the same time as Carl luaghed, his cheeks flushed with red "Is Rosalind a romantic person?" she asked him suddenly, trying to learn more about his feelings towards his fiancee.

Carl sighed softly, he hoped that she wouldn't ask about Rosalind but now that she did, he had to do nothing but to answer her "I don't really know." he said finally and Di's brows furrowed.

"What do you mean? How can you _not_ know Carl?" she asked him quickly, not letting him to finish his thought.

"Well, Ros sometimes acts like she doesn't want to talk about romance at all, at least not as much as _you_ always want to." he looked knowingly at Di and she hit him playfully on the arm "I don't know, she likes kissing that's for sure." he grinned at Di who was trying her best not to laugh.

" _Carl_!" she exclaimed and giggled finally "Well, kissing _is_ kind of romantic, but that's not what I'm talking about really, you know." she said more seriously.

"Like I said, I'm not sure if she is, I think she might be, but then I'm not entirely certain." he replied honestly.

"Robert is _very_ romantic." Di added and sighed with delight as she touched the silk scarf resting around her slender neck.

Carl forbid himself to sigh or roll his eyes and so he just murmured "I'm sure he is." which made Di to look at him questioningly again but then when she opened her lips to finally ask him what was wrong and whether he was worried about something, she decided on asking him other question.

"Do you have any idea where you and Rosalind will live after your wedding?" she asked him.

Carl sighed with relief as it was a much more comfortable question to answer "We will stay here in Glen, of course." he replied "I will still work at school and Rosalind will still work in her shop, and we're going to rent out a small house near the Upper Glen somewhere around July, so near our _wedding_." he said the last word almost with disbelief.

"That's nice." Di said, somehow feeling uneasy.

"Yes, life won't change so much, will it?" he said, or maybe asked, Di wasn't entirely sure but she didn't have to wonder as she realised that they just reached the post office "You go and visit this fiancee of yours, Carl, and I'll send the package from Mother to Aunt Leslie." she told him as they stood together outside the red door of the post office.

Carl smiled at her sadly and his eyes turned a bit gloomy but he kissed her cheek nonethelss, like he always used to "Sure." he said and then his smile was more radiant for a second "Do you want me to walk you back home?" he asked her expectantly.

Di chuckled sweetly and touched his cheek "You don't have to be the best friend in the world, Carl." she said to him with a tender smile "I will see you tomorrow then." she stepped on the doorstep of the post office and smiled at Carl once again.

Carl smiled back at her as if she just slapped him in the face, and this time he didn't even mind whether or not she could see how much his smile changed "As you wish, Miss Blythe." he replied, truning aroud and waving at her "I'll see you tomorrow then!" and he turned around again, this time for good.

Di was about to turn around too but then she stopped and looked at Carl's back as if she was studying him all over again. Yes, she did see the change in his smile and even in that second, she knew that this smile would haunt her for the rest of the day.

* * *

Dear Diary,

May came into our lives with a blessing. On the very first day of the month beginning the true and real spring, Una and Shirley welcomed their second baby. A baby-girl again! Luna Rosemary Blythe came into this world just three days ago and she's already a star of our family. She looks just like Una, _entirel_ y, the very image of. She has the exact shade of her mother's eyes, and she's so sweet and so wonderful in every way that I think I love her just as much as her parents do.

You might ask why did my brother and my sister-in-law name their second baby Luna? No, it's not because it has "Una" in it, it's because she was born at night and as Una told me, when she held her in her arms for the first time a moon shone on her daughter and she just knew what name she would give her second baby.

Everyone is, again, in love with baby Luna and I can't do anything but to bake more cookies and knit more hats or socks and make an excuse to go to Shirley's and Una's house to gain the opportunuty to hold baby Luna and look into her blue eyes and wonder what she will be like in the years to come.

Whenever I hold Luna or Owen, such tiny beautiful babies like they are, I can't do anything but wonder whether I myself, Diana Blythe, will have children as beautiful and as wonderful as those two, my new niece and nephew are.

Only now I realised that I've never actually thought about having children properly, as strange as it might appear to some people (definitely to my twin Nan) as I am nothing but almost thirty years old, but I never really gave this thought enough time to sink into my mind. I didn't even talk about having children with Robert, somehow I just didn't feel like he would want to talk about it with me, or maybe he wants to but I just don't know about it?

The reason I talk about it _now_ is that whenever a new baby in our family is born, I feel like I am isolated, maybe just for a second or two, but I feel like I don't belong to this new group of parents which consists of most of my family members.

There was this one time when we had a family dinner and all of the men of my family went fishing and we, women, stayed in the Ingleside's living room and we all started talking together, like we always do when we're in such a big circle. Faith started to talk about how the other day Julia said her first word to Jem, saying "DadaMama", we all laughed of course but then the conversation grew stronger and each of the women around me started to talk about their children and their more or less funny situations connected with them. Even Mother and Susan were talking very eagerly about each of us, me and my siblings that is. Only me, childless Di, sat back down in her chair and just listened, and no one, I _think_ , even noticed that for the next hour I didn't say a word.

Like I said many times before, this thought makes me even more excited about my marriage to Robert. But I can't feel properly that I _will_ get married in just three months time. I don't talk about it enough, I suppose, but what can I do? Everyone is so busy, _I'm_ busy myself with school, my students and now I have the whole wedding to plan too. I have most os the things figured out but still there is my wedding dress and a veil waiting to be decided on. I think I'll go and try to think about buying them next month, when school will be finally over and I will have more time for myself.

For now, I will put on my hat and my shoes and I will head to to the Farm House to chat with Una and to hold baby Luna because she's just as beautiful as the moon is.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Oh, I like _this_ dress, Di!"

" _No_ , I think it's too plain."

"Why, Rilla? It looks wonderful with this lace nackline and flowing bottom!"

" _Nan_ , I think that Di should get something more extravagant, for once in her life."

"Excuse me, sisters of mine." Di finally spoke up as she turned around from the mirror and looked meaningfully at her twin and her baby-sister "I think that I should have a say, don't you think?" she asked them with a light grin appearing in the corner of her lips.

Anne chucked quietly when she saw how her two daughters glared at each other "Darlings, it's Di who should like the dress, _she_ will be the one to wear it, and it is her wedding." she told them warmly.

Nan and Rilla sighed in unison and looked back at Di who stood in front of them, twirling around, examining the dress she was wearing "I don't know if I like it _enough_." Di said wistfully.

"Di, dear, you have to pick eventually." Susan said "You will have to wear this dress in one month's time!"

Di's cheeks flushed with red and her eyes suddenly filled with fear "Oh dear, I'm so scared that I won't choose the right dress!" she said and looked in the reflection of herself in the mirror again "Maybe I should borrow your wedding dress, Mother…"

"No, Di." Nan cut her "Both Rilla and I borrowed Mother's wedding dress, it was just after the war as you know and we couldn't yet afford to buy our own ones, but now when the war finished almost _seven_ years ago, you _will_ get a brand new wedding dress." she smiled at Di who smiled back at her.

"I suppose you're right." Di agreed "I will be married just _once_ in my lifetime so I suppose that if I have the chance, I _can_ buy a brand new wedding dress."

"Maybe you should try on another dress?" Rilla suggested.

Di was about to agree but when she looked at the clock hanging on the wall she put her hands on her cheeks and quickly started to walk back into the dressing room "No, I have to go _now_! I have to run to school to see who passed and who didn't pass to Queen's!" she exclaimed.

"She will _never_ buy this dress." Nan whispered to the women around her "It's the second time this week when we come here and she tries to pick out this dress."

"Just give her time, darling." Anne said "She needs it and we should all respect that."

"I just hope that she _will_ get married after all!" Susan sniffed and no one dared to say anoter word to _that_.

* * *

Di ran to the Glen's school as fast as she could. She was already late, she knew that everyone of her class already saw the results and went back home, but she had to go and see for herself who passed and who didn't.

She felt guilty that she forgot the time while she was putting on so many different wedding dresses and was presenting them to her family, she knew that she shouldn't agree with her sisters to go _on that day_ and try to buy a wedding dress at last. But now she couldn't turn back the clock and the only thing she could do was to run and see, even if she was the last one, the results of her students's exams to Queen's.

Carl was leaning against the wall, his hat on his head and his eyes following the birds flying above him from one side of sky to another. He thought that Di would be late, as he knew that she went to town in order to buy her wedding dress and so he wasn't surprised when he saw Diana Blythe running, out of breath, with her red curls completely out of order and her hat in her hands, straight to the place where he was standing.

" _Carl_! You waited for me!" she breathed out as she stopped running eventually and gave him a soft breathless kiss on the cheek.

Carl chuckled when he examined how red her cheeks were and how messy her hair became "I did wait." he replied cheerfully "Di, you could get a heart attack from all this running." he put her hand on her shoulder worriedly as she was breathing heavily.

Di finally started breathing normally and straightened up, as she put her hands on her messy curls "No, I wouldn't." she answered him joyfully "Carl, _why_ did you wait for me? I feel even more guilty now." she said to him.

"Don't then." he replied and took her hand to show her a board with a few papers sticked on it "I had to wait when I heard how many students passed from your class." he smiled at her slightly.

Di's face turned suddenly pale and she looked at him nervously "Oh, _no_!" she exclaimed "No one did? Oh, no that's what I thought! I told _everyone_ that…" she started but Carl put his hand on her mouth and chuckled again.

"Di, for once in your life, _stop_ talking!" he said " _All_ of your students passed, _again_." he smiled at her again and Di immediately looked at the board next to her.

She suddenly squealed and jumped on Carl's neck "Oh, this is like a dream!" she shouted out and laughed at the same time.

Carl eventually put her down but still held her hands in his "That's why I waited, I had to see your reaction to the results. Congratulations, Di." he said to her and they both grinned at each other joyfully.

"Thank you, Carl." Di replied merrily and put her arm in his "Walk me home Carl, and let's make it a _long_ walk, and let's talk and talk about _everything_."

Carl patted her hand gently and they both started walking arm-in-arm "I don't want to do anything else." he replied and his chest filled up with maybe not full, but at least some, happiness.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter XVIII**

Di was sitting on the White Lady, her head leaning across the tree's trunk, her eyes closed, a soft smile spreading on her lips and a thick book in her lap. The summer breeze was softly brushing her red curls, and the sound of leaves moving around her made her feel as if nothing else existed in the world, just her and the summer breeze. It was the second week of July, the weather was perfect and Di felt like a real Queen, just in that very moment. But the Di from just an hour earlier was quite different.

Earlier that day, Di wasn't as peaceful and as happy as she was in that moment. She had an argument with her own self, and later with Nan about Di's wedding and the preparations for it. Di's wedding was supposed to take place in just over a week's time and she still didn't choose her wedding dress, she decided that she would wear her Mother's old veil but she still had no idea about her dress, the most important thing a bride should mostly think about in order to plan out her wedding, and the thing which should excite her most.

Di didn't know why and how was that possible but she simply couldn't find a dress in which she could picture herself while getting married to Robert. Everything apart from this wedding dress was prepared, the food was slowly getting made by nervous Susan, the official invitations were supposed to be sent in a day's time and Robert bought a train ticket to Glen for Saturday, so just four days from that day. But "the wedding dress" was Di's major problem and she was spending hours in the two shops in town in order to buy it. But not even one dress was close to perfection, and in Di's, and any other bride's for that matter, mind a wedding dress _must_ be simply perfect.

Di was extremely busy even though she had no lessons to teach, she had a lot of planning and thinking to do too. She and Robert still hadn't decided whether they would want their wedding to take place in Rainbow Valley or a church and that was another matter for Di to be worried about concerning the fact that she was to be married in _nine_ days.

Nan came over to Ingleside in the morning and asked Di to come with her to Bright River the next day in order to buy _the_ dress, eventually, but Di refused her proposition and said that she wouldn't go to _Bright River_ just to buy a dress. That was the reason of her fight with Nan and after it, Nan took her hat and went back to her home, leaving Di with their Mother who tried her best to cheer her daughter up, and she succeed, not entirely but a little at least.

That's how Di ended up with a book in her lap, her hair messy and her very own self sitting on White Lady's branch with her closed eyes and dreamy expression on her face. She needed just one hour rest and she didn't know it, but she would need it more than ever especially for the day that had already begun.

"Di! What are you doing up there?"

Di opened her eyes quickly and saw Carl sprinting in her direction with a funny smile on his lips "Oh, Carl you startled me!" she exclaimed although her face was still a picture of joyfulness.

"I'm sorry if I did, madam." he replied cheerfully and when Di put her hand towards him, he took it gently and helped her to get down off the tree "What were you doing up there? Isn't ground satisfying enough to read a book?" he asked her with a raised brow as they started their usual walk across the Rainbow Valley.

Di chuckled "If you already know that I was reading a book, then why do you ask what I was doing?" she asked him and then added softly "Besides, the ground _can't_ be satisfying enough when you know that you can climb a tree and read a book between its branches instead."

Carl grinned at her "I was just teasing, _of course_ the ground isn't satisfying enough." he said and then looked more deeply into Di's eyes "Is something wrong, Di? Your lips are smiling but your eyes definitely aren't." he said.

Di grinned weakly at him and stopped walking under the shadow of a cherry tree "Yes, there is something wrong." she told him eventually and sighed heavily "I don't know _what's_ wrong with me Carl, I can't buy my own wedding dress and my wedding is going to take place in _nine_ days! I mean, this is _not_ how a bride should behave, is it? Oh, I _don't know_ what's wrong with me, Carl!" she exclaimed and sighed heavily again.

Carl's cheeks flushed with red and his eyes started to twinkle, although his expression remained serious "There's nothing wrong with you, Di." he said, his hands shaking from nerves " _Nothing_." he repeated and Di looked at him worriedly.

"Why are you so shaky, Carl, I am a bad friend, is something troubling _you_?" she asked him, her eyes looking in his own with fear that there was something very nerve-wracking Carl's soul.

Carl grinned at her lightly and took her hands in his "You see Di, I came here today because I wanted to ask you something, and I thought that I would ask you later or maybe some other day but I think that I should just ask you _now_." he gulped.

Di frowned "What is it?" she questioned him.

" _Don't_ marry Robert." he said eventually, and he breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he said the name of his rival.

Di withdrew her hands from his own and looked at him seriously "How can you ask me such a thing?" she exclaimed, her own cheeks flushing with bright red from anger which was entering her heart.

"Because I love _you_ , Diana Ruby Blythe." Carl shouted out almost, reaching for her hands again.

Di was so astonished that she let him take her shaking hands in his own trembling ones and her lips parted a bit, as she stared at him helplessly. She studied Carl's face, his lips which just said those few words which she feared most in this world, his blue eyes which were somehow aflame, his eyebrows which were moving as he tried to figure out what _she_ was thinking about.

In a blink of an eye, Di realised what Carl just said to her and that her hands were being tightly held in his. She took them away and looked at him furiously "You… _you_ … love me?" she repeated after him, in something which could be hardly described as a whisper.

Carl stepped forward " _Yes_ , I do." he replied shakily "I always did."

"This is not right, Carl, this is definitely _not_ right." Di said more to herself than to the man who was standing next to her.

"Di, you see for yourself that you can't even think properly about your wedding to Robert." he said passionately "You see that _yourself_! Did it ever occur to you that you two might not be "meant to be"?" he asked her.

Di hit him in the arm "How _dare_ you say such a thing to me!" she shouted and then laughed mockingly "You don't even _know_ Robert!"

"I've seen him enough to know." Carl replied coldly "But Di, you _musn't_ marry him, he's not the man for you. Maybe he is a romantic type of person, and a wealthy man at that, but _please_ just think whether this kind of man can make you happy?" he asked her in despair.

Di clenched her fists "Yes, he would." she said through her teeth "Oh, _why_ did you have to tell me that you love me? It's the worst thing you could _ever_ do!" she told him, her eyes filling up with tears as she started turning around, ready to run back home.

Carl, as if he could read her mind, quickly took her hand in his again "Di, I love you and you can't blame me for that. I just do, as simply and plainly as it sounds, but that's the truth." he said to her tenderly.

"What about Rosalind?" she asked him suddenly.

Carl sighed "I will never love her as much as I love you." he answered her wistfully "But if you will marry your Mr Robert Keats, I have to marry someone too, or I shall go mad with fury and... heartbreak." he looked deeply into her eyes again and he didn't have to say any other thing for Di could read it all in his longing eyes.

Di withdrew her hands again and looked away "But I _can't_ love you, not in the way you want me to anyway." she said rather sadly, her eyes still teary.

"I think you can, you just don't want to." Carl murmured and before Di realised it he turned her around and kissed her hard and strong on the lips.

She was so shocked that she couldn't move for the first few seconds. Di was actually very much surprised how good of a kisser Carl was. This kiss was nothing like she would expect it to be. It was quick but it was meaningful and in a way, _familiar_ , although Di didn't know why she though it to be familiar for Robert had never kissed her like _this_ ever before.

As soon as the thought of Carl being a "good kisser" crossed her mind, she pulled away and _slapped_ him across the face, leaving a faint red hand-print on his cheek. Carl _wasn't_ surprised at all, and the fact that he wasn't only caused Di to be even more furious with him "How _dare_ you _kiss_ me?!" she exclaimed and when Carl opened his mouth to say something she cut him off " _No_ , _I_ will speak now. Carl, I can't take it anymore, I just can't. Not now when I know… _this_." she breathed out "I'm going back home and _don't_ follow me." she said sternly, turned around and started to run back home as fast as she could, leaving Carl breathless, confused and most importantly and sadly, broken-hearted.

* * *

Di came back to Ingleside, her cheeks wet and red, her eyes as wild, shocked and confused as never before and her small hands shaking nervously. Anne was in the kitchen when Di entered the room and immediately, even without asking, she enveloped Di in her loving and understanding arms. Di cried out all of her worries, doubts, anger, sadness, hopes, dreams and disappointments. Anne listened carefully to everything her oldest daughter told her about what happened just a few minutes earlier but also all about her thoughts she didn't share with her earlier although they were _always_ there, in Di's head.

Eventually, when Di closed her trembling lips and all of her tears were shed, no more were left, Di asked her Mother a question so hard she would never forget even the tone in which she asked it "Mother, do you think that… I should refuse Robert?"

Anne looked at her daughter with pride in her eyes, as although she _was_ broken-hearted that Di was in such distress, she was proud of her that she was making this decision, a decision which sometimes is the hardest a person will ever make in his or her life. "Darling, can you picture your wedding, your house in Ottawa, your teaching career in a different school and your future with Robert standing by your side through everything, the good and bad?" Anne held Di's hands in hers and looked into her eyes "Can you picture it _all_ in your mind?"

Di looked at her Mother's eyes for a while, trying her very hardest to achieve the aim Anne just set in front of her, _really_ trying to picture her whole life with Robert at her side. After a while, she looked at her and Anne's hands embraced together and she chuckled sadly "No, I can't picture it all, Mum." she whispered.

Anne sighed heavily and squeezed Di's hands. She put her hand under Di's chin and lifted up her head to her level. Di's eyes were filled with a new wave of fresh tears but those gray eyes which in that moment were almost as green as the dress she wore, those eyes were certain and sure of her decision, although Di's mouth wouldn't say them outloud yet. "Then you know what to do, sweetheart." Anne told her warmly "I must tell you, darling, that it is a very hard and difficult decision to make, but I believe that everything you will ever do is for your best and that's why I will _always_ support you, dear." she smiled at her, her gray eyes, the same shade as Di's, turning teary.

Di smiled back at her Mother "And so, because you believe in me so much, as you always did, I will call Robert _right now_ and tell him right away that I will send the engagement ring back to him today." she said sternly, not even looking at her diamond ring which was peacefully resting on her finger. A new and stronger woman called Diana Blythe stood up from her chair and marched to the telephone in the hallway with a heavy heart but a made-up mind.

Anne sat deeper in her chair and for the first time in her life she was glad that no one else, apart from herself and Di, was in the house. Her husband was on the call, and Susan went to town to shop for groceries. Anne put her right hand on her left and sighed again. She _could_ feel the prayer passing through her body, like she always knew she would one day, and all she thought about in the next twenty minutes was about her hope for that prayer to become a reality for her daughter as she couldn't stand how one of her children, was so unhappy, and so dissatisfied with life.

She didn't hear a word Di said to the receiver in the hallway, the only thing she could hear was a soft chirruping outside the window at which she was looking and she smiled when she heard Di's footsteps coming from the hallway, right back to the chair she left those twenty minutes earlier. Anne looked at Di who sat back next to her. It was a different Di, her face wasn't swollen anymore, her cheeks weren't burning, her eyes weren't aflame, in front of Anne stood a new young woman with a brighter, worry-less life in front of her.

Di took her Mother's hands in hers, she took a deep breath and grinned, weakly, but lightly at the same time "I think that I've broken hearts of two men I love most in this world." she said eventually and slowly "One, the one I've been engaged to, will never speak to me again, and the second, the one who loved me even before _I_ knew that he did, will do everything in his power to win my heart." she then looked back in her Mother's eyes "But… even though my own heart is a little bit broken itself, I feel like I _can_ mend it."

Anne kissed her daughter's cheek tenderly, her eyes smiling and laughing at the same time "Don't feel it only, darling Di," she said as she put Di in her arms, and Di started to tremble again "- _believe_ in it, too."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter XIX**

Dear Diary,

I know that I haven't written in here for a long time, ever since a week after I called off my own wedding, but now I am more myself than I was at that time and so I suppose that I can write in here, to tell you all about my feelings and my family's reaction to my called off wedding.

Two hours after I called Robert to tell him that I can't marry him and then sent him back my engagement ring, Father came back home and all three of us, Mother, Father and I talked together about what happened between me and Carl and then about the call to Robert I did and they were both so understanding even though half way through my speech I was sobbing like a baby.

It is true, Mother's and Father's story _is_ similar to mine, Mother also had to refuse Royal Gardner and so she knows how I feel but I'm not entirely sure if she does because I was _almost_ getting married! I was just a _week_ to this day of days!

Father just squeezed my hand, wiped away my tears and smiled at me in his own way which will always make me to smile back at him. Eventually after an hour of talking, I got a bit better but then Susan came back home and when she heard the news, she was angry that all of her cooking was going to waste but then she too was sympathetic and kissed my cheek and offered me a hot tea.

All of my siblings were understanding although they all, maybe except for Una, were surprised that I was not going to marry Robert after all. Rilla and Faith both hugged me and made me a lot of cookies to cheer me up, Nan burst into tears and said "Oh, Di, I'm _so_ sorry that I was such a beats about this wedding dress!" and we both cried together, and again we felt like little seven year old twin-girls again. Una however, she, like I said before, wasn't surprised _at all_. She was extremely sympathetic of course and we spent hours talking about this whole situation, but when I asked her why isn't she surprised that I called off the wedding she just said "I had this feeling in my chest which was telling me that Robert Keats isn't the right match for you, darling." and maybe she's right. After all, I _did_ refuse Robert, and my motto was always that "everything happens for a reason".

Anyway, I got a bit better after a week, but I still can't be perfectly happy as I once was, for two main reasons. One is that Robert will never speak to me again, I know it because _he told me so_ when I called him on that warm day in July. I will forever grieve his absence in my life and I will _never_ forgive myself for letting him fall for me so badly because _this_ destoryed our long-lasting friendship.

The second thing which keeps me away from being as happy as I once was is Carl. We haven't spoken since the day when he told me he loved me and it's been almost a month since. I lost my two bosom friends on that warm and sunny day which in my memory will always be gloomy and dark and _rainy_.

I think that Carl is just as broken-hearted as Robert is, and I know that I am still quite unforgiving towards him, I feel as if the anger runs through my blood when I think about him. But then I _hate_ myself for thinking like that as I know that he is after all broken-hearted (Una told me so the other day when I asked her to be honest with me about how is Carl really doing). I love Carl desperately, but not like _that_ , and I long for his friendship, his funny way of looking at things, and how he can always make me laugh.

But there's a weird situation going on concerning Carl which I can't understand. You see, Carl _is_ getting married in a week's time. He did tell me that he loves me and he did tell me that he will _never_ love Rosalind… as much as he loves _me_ (it's always hard for me to even write those words down without tears filling my eyes). I know that he is very sad over what happened between us, but he might also be angry at me, just as _I_ am with him. I don't know why he didn't break off the engagement when he told me the truth about his feelings, I simply have no idea, and I worry about him, and his happiness.

But his wedding with Rosalind is to take place next week, so I think that I will just have to show up and maybe then try to speak to him without feeling nervous or embarrassed because I miss him, I miss him very _very_ much.

I try to stop thinking about Robert and slowly, _very slowly_ , it becomes possible but how can I stop thinking about Carl when he is still so near me and… especially when he wants to be my friend again? I hope that he does at least.

I shall go now, I think it's time for me to go and finish reading this last chapter of "Sense and Sensibilty" before it will get too dark for me to read at all.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

It was the day of Carl's and Rosalind's wedding. The middle of August, the weather was the most perfect weather for a wedding, with the soft summer breeze, sky's bluest colours above everyone's heads and no clouds spread upon this bluest of all colours.

Everyone was ready and Anne and Gilbert were standing in the hallway, Anne looking beautiful in her flowing blue dress and a small hat on her red hair. Gilbert was very handsome himself in his best suit and his twinkling eyes were reserved only for his wife standing next to him. Di was helping Susan to pack all of the cakes, salads and other dishes Susan prepared a week earlier for this special occassion. Di was _not_ in a good mood, she was rather melancholy and she was rather nervous about seeing Carl, in _such_ circumstances.

She didn't know how she could speak to him, or what she should actually say but she didn't have time to think it all through as Susan was telling her exactly what she _needed_ to be doing. "Di, dear, we have to pack this chicken salad now, but oh, would you be such a darling and put it in Doctor's car instead? Thank you, dear." and so it went for another half an hour.

"Everything's packed, Susan." Gilbert said as he returned back from the car with Di at his side, and a smile crossing his face "I think that we ought to be going or otherwise we will be late." he said knowingly glancing at his wife and a daughter while Susan was putting on a hat in hurry.

Anne nodded in agreement and so did Di "You will be fine, darling?" Gilbert asked Di at the side and Di kissed her Father gently on the cheek, a soft grin appearing on her lips.

"I have to be, Daddy." she whispered back to him and Anne took her hand in hers. As soon as they all reached the door, a door opened up before them, and Jerry stood in front of them with little Rose in his arms.

"Jerry! What happened?" Anne asked him worriedly as they could all see how pale Jerry's face was, not mentioning that the fact that Jerry appeared on Ingleside's doorstep a few minutes before his brother's wedding was worrying itself.

Jerry looked meaningfully at Di and her eyes opened wider with fear "Rosalind left Carl a note that she can't marry him," he said eventually "-and that's because she loves someone else."

Anne and Susan gasped with shock, Gilbert looked at Jerry with confused expression on his face and Di's eyes filled up with determination and certainty over what she was supposed to do "I have to go to him." she declared.

Jerry smiled at her as it was as if she could read his mind and he squeezed her hand "He needs you, Di." he whispered to her ear and Di took off her hat and let Jerry to drive her to the manse along with Anne, Gilbert and Susan. Their journey was quiet as nobody knew what to say or how to feel. Only Di was quite calm and knew _exactly_ what to think and what to do. When they all reached the manse, Di jumped out of the car and made her way inside.

"Oh, darling you're here." Rosemary said with a broken smile on her face.

Di kissed her cheek and grinned lightly "Where's Carl?" she asked immediately.

"In the garden." Rosemary replied and smiled thankfully at Di who without looking at anyone else in the room, made her way outside.

Carl was sitting on the bench, facing the patch with roses and he was dressed in his gray suit, his hat was resting beside him and his eyes were fixed on the view in front of him. Di approached him slowly, and when she finally sat down beside him on the bench, Carl realised that she _was_ next to him and looked at her with teary eyes.

"You came." he whispered, his voice almost surprised but glad nonetheless.

"Yes." she replied, looking at him with her own eyes wet. Carl smiled at her weakly and looked away, again at the view in front of him. Di sighed sadly and held back her tears. Suddenly she felt Carl's hand touching hers and she squeezed it tightly.

"I didn't love her as much as I love you, but it really… hurts." he breathed out and bit his lip.

Di looked at him and warm tears started to flow down her cheeks "I know Carl, I know." she whispered and Carl finally looked back at her, his face quite pale and his eyes blank, as if he forced himself not to show Di how he felt although she knew it perfectly well.

"I kept my promise to her." he explained as calmly as he could, although his voice was shaking "That's why I didn't call off the wedding, I wanted to behave like a gentleman is supposed to behave. But she just…" his eyes got teary again "-I didn't even _know_."

"I wish I could do something…" Di started but Carl interrupted her.

"I still love _you_ , Di." he said passionately and he squeezed her hand harder "There's no reason why I should hide it now. If only you could…"

"Carl, stop." Di said quickly and then sighed heavily "I know that it's hard for you, it's hard for me too. But I promise you that I _will_ think about it, I will think whether or not it's possible for me to love you back in the same way as you love me." she said and tried her best to smile at him but her attempt failed.

Carl also tried his best to smile back but it didn't work out either, he still looked miserable and his smile was a definition of this very word. Di eventually moved nearer him and put her arms around him. And the two friends stayed like that together, even though they knew that their friendship would never be the same again.

* * *

Dear Diary,

The decision has been made and I am not going back to teaching at Glen's school this year. I am simply not in the mood, and not in the right state of mind to prepare lessons, prepare those mini-tests of mine and then do all the marking. I am simply _tired_.

However I will be giving private Maths and English lessons, and I already have five students signed up. But other than that, I will just try to relax at home, and do things I didn't have time to do this year, like writing short stories, or going for a trip with Mother to Charlottetown once in a while.

Carl and I meet very occassionally, it's not as bad as it was before his "wedding", but it's also not as frequent it was before my "wedding". My heart stopped bleeding but it needs time to recover. And because I promised Carl to think whether or not I'll be ever able to love him back, my time is most literally full, even if I just take a lonely walk down the Rainbow Valley.

Carl is much better than he was on his wedding day, he wasn't really in love with Rosalind and that's probably why he isn't in such a big state of sadness in which he would be if he _was_ in love with her. But I can't meet up with him as often because everytime we do meet up, I can just see in his eyes this question which I myself repeat in my head several times a day. I don't know if I will ever have an answer to this question, but I try my best to _think_ of the answer.

I also didn't tell anyone, except for my parents, about this promise I made to Carl or about what happened between the two of us earlier. I can't tell anyone else because whoever I would tell (except for my parents of course) my _whole_ family would know about it, and that's definitely something I don't want to happen.

I'm really glad that I don't have to teach at school this year, I am really relieved. My heart is recovering not only from Carl, but also from Robert because there isn't a day when I don't think about him. But whenever I do, I feel that I made the right decision, he _wasn't_ the right man for me. It's hard to explain why I feel that it was the right decision but I can just feel it, and that's the only thing I need to know to be sure that I don't have to regret this decision after all.

I don't think my life has ever been as messed up as it is right now. I can't help but wonder _when_ and _how_ all of the broken pieces will fall back into their right place once more?

Yours,

Di Blythe


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter XX**

On one warm evening of the second week of October, when the leaves on the trees turned as red as the roads beneath them, Di decided to pay Nan a visit in order to talk with her about Carl.

She didn't tell anyone, apart from her parents, about all the details of how she found out that Carl loved her, and how he kissed her twice, and how he told her to break off the engagement with Robert and asked her to love him in the same way as he loved her. But the time had come when she needed to tell someone else, to get a different point of view on things. She wanted to tell Nan desperately, it was almost like a sin to her that she didn't tell her own _twin_ a secret as serious as this one, she knew that Nan probably would tell her that she _has_ to love Carl back because Nan was a kind of person who always placed love for another person as priority as well as with thinking that _everyone_ has to get married, the sooner the better, as she also believed in romance just as much as she believed in God and hope.

Di was almost shaking when she was walking down the red road towards the manse, her twin's house. She only prayed to God that Nan wouldn't tell her secret to anyone else. Of course she wouldn't, she was her twin after all but… Who knows how and when a person would tell a secret to someone else without even realising it?

All in all, Di reached the green door of Nan's and Jerry's house and took a deep breath before knocking nervously, _three_ times. Almost as soon as she knocked, the door swiftly opened as if by itself, and Di frowned, becoming curious. She looked behind the door and there was Jake hiding behind it with a mischievous smile on his face "I wanted to _scare_ you!" he groaned with disappointement.

Di chuckled and kissed his cheek "You will have lots of other opportunities, darling." she told him "Where is your Mummy?" she asked, looking into the hall.

Jake, without any answering Di's question, closed the door behind Di and took her hand. She smiled to herself and followed him faithfullly. Jake guided her to the kitchen where she indeed found Nan who was singing, with an apron around her waist and a spoon in her hand.

Nan giggled when she saw her sister standing in front of her with laughing eyes hidden under the green hat resting on her head "Di, darling!" she exclaimed joyfully and put down her spoon in order to kiss her twin on each cheek twice "I'm sorry that I'm in such a mess." she apologised, although she didn't look sorry at all, she looked as if she was in a perfect state of happiness.

Little Rose was sitting on a chair next to her mother and danced a dance of her own with her doll "Don't be ridiculous, Nan." Di waved her hand and took off her hat "I don't mind sitting here with you instead of sitting in the living room, like some old ladies with gray hair while drinking tea." she grinned at her twin knowingly.

Nan smiled back at her and took a spoon in her hand again "Alright then." she declared and took a bowl full of flour in her hands "What brings you here my dear sister?" she asked her merrily.

Di took a deep breath again and made Nan to look at her questioningly "I wanted to tell you something, Nan." she said eventually "Something I meant to tell you a while ago but I've been on a war with myself, fighting over whether bother or not to bother you with my problems."

Nan looked almost angrily at Di "Bother _me_?" she said "Di, you must mistake me for some other twin if you think like that. I would never want you to do anything else _but_ to bother me with your problems!"

Di smiled with gratitude at her "Good, but before I tell you my secret story, could you promise me not to tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you?" she asked her pleadingly.

Nan smiled warmly at her sister and bent down to kiss the top of her head "I won't even tell Jerry, and you know that I _do_ tell him everything." she promised and Di was satisfied because she knew exactly when Nan was lying and when she wasn't, and in that moment she definitely _wasn't_ lying.

So Di told her everything. It took her a long time to tell Nan everything because Nan was asking many questions and making a lot of comments which would always end with an exclamation mark at the end. But all in all, Di told her sister everything and when she finished, she felt almost as free as she used to feel, once upon a time. When Di finished, Nan had already put the cake into the oven and took off her apron. She sat down next to Di and her children and put her both hands in her twin's hands "So…" she said eventually "How do you feel about Carl, Diana?" she asked her seriously.

Di sighed and looked at Jake, Rose and Nan once again "I'm… not sure." she said slowly and then opened her mouth again "I think that… I _might_ be able to love him in that way. I think… I _think_ … But I'm not sure at all." she confessed, her cheeks red and her eyes wistful and tired.

Nan squeezed Di's hands and grinned at her sweetly like she always used to whenever she knew that she could talk with her twin about serious matters of love "Darling, I can't tell you how you feel." she said "You must know it yourself."

"Oh, but the problem is is that I _don't_ know!" Di exclaimed helplessly "I _want_ to love him like that! I want to, Nan, but the question is _can I_?"

"When he kissed you, the day when he told you that he loves you, did you feel anything at all? Any warmness, any kind of feelings passed you?" Nan asked her.

"Of course it did." Di replied "I turned all red, that's what I'm sure of. I was shocked, surprised and… I actually kind of liked it." she said and at that Nan simply burst out laughing. Di started to laugh as well, and Rose with Jake followed after them even if they didn't know why their mother and an auntie laughed so hard that soft tears started to flow down their cheeks. To be quite honest neither Nan nor Di knew _why_ they started to laugh, but when they finished, they had to look for fresh tissues.

"You liked it then?" Nan asked her, her face still smiling from ear to ear.

"Yes, I did." Di replied cheerfully, and wiped away her tears "I did." she repeated more earnestly and some of those fears and doubts came back into her eyes again "But I didn't feel anything else. I didn't feel like I ever felt when Robert used to kiss me. But then this kiss was _entirely_ different. I don't know, Nan…" she sighed "I just _don't_ know."

Nan squeezed Di's hands again "Sweetheart," she said "-you know what I think you should do? You will think me ridiculous for suggesting such a thing but that's the only way you can find out the truth about your feelings."

Di nodded at her nervously "Yes? What should I do?" she asked her.

"I think you should talk to Carl." Nan answered decidedly "Maybe not exactly about your feelings, but you should talk to him and tell him that you have a problem with realising the truth about those feelings you might or might not have in store for him. I'm sure he, most of all of us, would really _love_ to know everything about your struggles deciding on this matter." she smiled at her kindly.

For a second Di thought that this was indeed ridiculous. But when she thought about it for one more second she realised that it actually did make sense, a confusing weird sense but _sense_ nonetheless. "I think you're right." she said finally "I _have_ to talk to Carl, as ridiculously as it sounds but I _have_ to talk to him."

* * *

But it wasn't very soon when Di actually decided on talking with Carl about her feelings. It took her a whole month to eventually decide when and how to catch him and finally speak to him and cry her heart out, but not _too_ much as she was telling herself, although she knew that this was quite impossible to avoid.

It was the very middle of the cold month of November when Di put on her blue coat, her matching hat and her gray gloves slipped onto her shaking hands. If someone would say that Diana Blythe looked thirty years old on that day, they must have been blind or simply stupid. She looked _wonderful_. And so she made her way to the Glen's school exactly half an hour after the lessons had finished. It was always the time when Carl was finishing marking or checking on books of his students or simply cleaning the blackboard or preparing for the next lesson.

Di waited outside, she played with her fingers and then listened to the cold wind blowing from every direction and she suddenly stopped being so nervous about meeting Carl that evening after all. Until… "Di! What are you doing here, my friend?" Carl appeared in front of Di so unexpectadly that she jumped from surprise and then chuckled.

"I wanted to talk with you." she said to him gently, she tried her best not to sound too promising for Carl, but she could see how colour came to his cheeks and a shadow of a smile was growing in the corner of his lips.

"Yes?" he asked her curiously and offered her his arm.

Di took it automatically and they both started walking together like in the days before the summer "I… The thing that I want to talk with you about is that…" she stammered and took a deep breath as she felt how the wave of hotness passed through her body "Is this question you asked me not so very long ago and my feelings and decisions about it." she said eventually.

Carl seemed as if he wanted to stop walking right there and talk with her face-to-face but decided on continuing their walk, as he could easily see how nervous and shaky Di was in that moment "So, do you have an answer to this particular question or rather a plea?" he asked her slowly.

Di looked up to him "Not exactly." she breathed out "That's why I want to talk with you about it. Because I don't know what and how to feel or what and how to say something about the decision under the name of "yes, I _can_ love you in that way" or "no, I _can't_ love you in that way"." she said quickly, gesticulating furiously.

Carl looked down at her "But Di, I can't make this decision for you." he said honestly.

Di's eyes turned wet and her expression wasa definition of despair "It seems that I can't either." she whispered, holding back her tears.

Carl eventually stopped walking as he couldn't take it all together anymore and without any asking he envelopped Di in a tight embrace. Di put her head on his shoulder and tears started to flow down her cheeks unexpectadly. She missed Carl, oh _how much_ she missed him! Even though they made up after Carl's "wedding" to Rosalind, they still couldn't be as good and as honest friends as they were, once. For the first time in her life, Di realised that she even knew how Carl smelled like. He smelled like apples which he could eat in enormous amounts each day, but also like tons of newly made sheets of paper and… of mint.

Di finally let all of her tears out and pulled away from Carl who was just as emotional as she was. He put his hands on her still shaking shoulders and smiled at her gently "Di, tell me everything you feel, I want to know _everything_." he said to her tenderly.

Di finally wiped away her tears and nodded in agreement "Alright." she said eventually "Carl, I think that maybe I _might_ be able to love you in that way. Not immediately but after some time. But I don't want to rush into anything, just as I didn't want to rush into anything with Robert although I _did_ , to be quite honest."

"To be quite honest, yes you did." Carl agreed impishly and Di hit him on the arm again although she chuckled quietly.

"But I don't want to ruin our friendship, Carl." she contunied on a more serious note "I can't ruin it because it would ruin my life. Because no one can guarantee us that we would be happy together even if we did love each other in that way. I just… I just… _don't know_ , Carl. My head is empty and full at the same time." she finished and put her hands on her cheeks in desperation.

Carl looked at her with understanding, warm and kind eyes and put her hand into his. Di didn't protest. "Di, I understand eveything you said. Believe it or not, I'm afraid of those things too." he said "But I feel that if you really _could_ love me in the way that I can love _you_ , we would be the happiest people alive. To be quite honest, _I_ would be most definitely." he winked at her and smiled but Di weakly grinned back and looked away.

Carl got serious again and put her chin up, so that he could look into her eyes "Di, what is it?" he asked her.

"Carl…" she whispered and looked into his dark blue eyes intensively "Carl…" she repeated but somehow she couldn't say anything else than his name.

"Di, I know it's selfish of me to say such a thing and I already hate myself for thinking it." he said suddenly, his eyes sparkling "But I need you to decide, _now_. Or otherwise, I think, both of us will go mad."

Di blinked and then looked at her hand resting in Carl's. She felt her heartbeat, she felt how her dried tears on her cheeks and how much her head was pulsing with all emotions possible. He was right, she _had_ to decide or otherwise they both would go mad with craziness of indecision.

It took her a few seconds to finally look back into Carl's eyes but it was him who spoke first "I _love_ you Di, and I will _always_ love you, dear girl of my selfish heart." he said, a soft smile on his lips.

"And… I think… that I love you _too_." she murmured although she could feel how her eyebrows twitched like they always did whenever she was telling a lie, for she was in the state where she couldn't separate truth from a lie.

Carl's eyes widened with surprise, happiness, fear, hope and love. His smile got wider too, his cheeks turned bright red, his hands reached for Di's cheeks and his dark blue eyes, even the eye which was blind, seemed to come back to life after so many months of not living his life at all.

" _Really_ , Di?" he asked her hopefully, his eyes filling up with tears.

Di's heart started to pound faster but she forced on a smile "I think that I'm beginning to, Carl." she whispered, her head spinning. Was it a lie? Oh, God, was it a lie _or_ the truth _or_ maybe a half-truth? She couldn't think of an answer herself but she couldn't tell Carl any other answer for she would break his heart and this might have also broken her own heart.

With this, Carl lowered his head and his lips met with Di's for the third time. It was a kind, gentle and an affectionate kiss, nothing like this quick and passionate kiss from the warm day in July but Di seemed not to mind, in fact she rather preferred it.

"Oh, it _doesn't_ feel right! It _doesn't_! Or maybe _it does_?" Di's thoughts were fighting between each other like soldiers of love. Eventually, she agreed with herself not to think about it for now, she rather thought that a blank mind would make her good, better than the pessimistic one. So when Carl kissed her again, when they reached Ingleside, she didn't say a word and she thought that her mind was blank, but when she reached her room upstairs she put her head on the pillow and sobbed for the next hour.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter XXI**

Dear Diary,

Christmas came and then it went out through our doors with an incredible speed, not mentioning that I'm still amazed by the date I'm writing at the tope of this page: 5th January 1926 but I actually don't mind time flying so fast nowadays and I'll explain why.

So Carl and I started courting officially on that one day in November, so almost two months ago and I must say that those were the longest two months of my life. I love Carl and I _did_ tell him that I could love him in that way but to be honest I still don't know as my head is just spinning and with each day I am getting more and more confused and embarrassed as opposed to what I should have becoming, more and more certain about whether or not I love Carl, in _that_ way.

I'm not entirely myself when I'm with Carl. I mean when we talk and when we laugh everything is as it was before, but when Carl kisses me (which he does quite often) or when we hold hands, I am not myself at all, I feel like I'm a different, shy and not very confident _Diana_ , and not even Di.

It's not that I hate when Carl for example kisses me, it's just that I don't feel like it's entirely right. Mother told me that I should give this relationship a chance and I heard her whispering to Dad one night that she thinks that "there is something in the air, even if Di doesn't know it yet" and I highly hope so or otherwise I will have to break Carl's heart, _again_ and this time it could be fatal.

But I don't want to sound too horrible although I probably do, unfortunately. But I don't feel very happy lately, I can't really recall when was the last day when I felt perfectly happy, it wasn't so very long ago I'm quite sure, or maybe it was? I seem to lose the track of time all the time.

Christmas was delightful, despite Carl kissing me under the mistletoe and holding my hand while sitting next to me at the Christmas table. We all gave each other wonderful presents and there was music and we all sang (Carl made a hilarious performance, he really _can't_ sing!) together and then we danced and while Carl and I danced I accidentally poked the vase standing nearby and of course broke it as it fell to the floor. I was horrified because the vase has been standing on this table in our living room ever since I can remember but then Mother and Father burst out laughing and Susan started giggling like a girl herself and after a few seconds, the whole room was a room full of laughter.

Then it was the New Year's Eve and we all got a wonderful surprise, Persis and her husband along with their daughter Nellie came for a visit! We were all so delighted to see them all again and to meet Nellie of course. She is such a beautiful baby and she's just as smiley and as funny as her mother is although she does have her father's eyes. But Auntie Leslie is delighted with her and so is Uncle Owen.

So we all even with our own Persis, Louis and Nellie, spent the last eve of the year 1925 together and it was a really fantastic party. I was glad, oh _so_ glad that that year was going to an end! It was such a long, horrible and heartbreaking year. This whole situation with Robert… Then with Carl… Oh, I just hope that the year of 1926 will be much, much, _much_ better than the last one.

Of course there were wonderful moments, magical moments like when I delivered Rilla's baby boy, dear Owen, and how all of my students passed again… It's really hard to understand why we mostly remember all the things which are the most painful to remember instead of those which fill our hearts with warmth and love?

All in all, it is a whole new year now and all I can hope for is for it to be the best year of my whole life, although, I highly doubt it will happen.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

"Oh, I'm so terribly sad that Persis is already back in France." Nan said wistfully while sipping her tea in the living room of Una's and Shirley's house "It feels as if she never actually came."

"Yes, I wish she could stay here a bit longer." Una agreed while she was hopping Cilia on her right knee "Persis always brings all the sunshine with her, even if she doesn't want to bring it, she always does anyway." she grinned at Di who held small Luna in her arms with an angelic expression on her face.

"Well, she couldn't stay here forever when her whole life is in France." Di said and kissed Luna on both cheeks, making the chubby, sweet baby to dimple "But I wish she wasn't all the way across the ocean, in Europe."

"I hope that one day we will all be able to visit Europe one day." Nan said excitedly "All of us, with our children and us drinking tea with the King at the Buckingham Palace!"

Una and Di shared a knowing glance and the three of them laughed together "Oh, Nan, if you could only get us an invitation with your charms!" Di said merrily, some of the old spark coming back to her eyes.

"Oh, I will." Nan nodded swiftly "Just wait and see girls." she stage-whispered and they all chuckled again.

"Di, do you think that you will want to go back to teaching at school this year?" Una asked her friend suddenly.

"I'm not sure yet." Di replied in a matter of fact tone "One part of me wants to but the other one tells me a definite "no"."

"You still teach anyway." Nan added "And now you are so busy because you started those painting classes! You are even busier than you were before!"

Di's cheeks flushed with red as she knew that the main reason why she took those painting and sketching classes was to spend a bit less time with Carl, and instead engage her mind with something else. Una noticed this blush and she immediately knew that her earlier supposing was right and when Nan looked at Di's flushed face, she knew it too, oh she _knew_ what was troubling Di immediately and so she put down Rose on the couch next to Cilia and she put her hands on Di's "Di, what is going on with you and Carl?" she asked eventually.

Di sighed. She knew that her twin and her sister-in-law knew her too well not to notice a change in her behaviour but, dear Lord, she tried _so hard_ to hide it! "I don't know Nan." she whispered dully.

"That's exactly what you said to me all those two months ago when you were wondering whether or not you love Carl." Nan pointed out.

She wasn't scared of saying this last statement in front of Una because just after Di and Carl started "courting" each other, Di told Una everything about her feelings because she thought it wouldn't be fair if Una didn't know about it while Di was being kissed by her younger brother everyday.

Di chuckled bitterly "I know." she said and then looked at both of her friends "But that's exactly how I've been feeling lately. Confused and… undecided." she sighed softly and her eyes filled with warm tears.

Nan and Una took both of Di's sides and hugged her "So you're _not_ in love with Carl then?" Nan asked her again once they all sat on the couch together.

Di wiped away her tears and shook her head "No, I don't think so, and I feel so bad and so guilty about it all!" she exclaimed.

Una, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly put her hand on Di's shouder "Dear friend, don't feel guilty, or bad. It's not your fault at all, it's _nobody_ 's fault to be honest. Those things just happen for no reason." she said kindly, the warmness in her eyes making Di feel a bit better.

"I know, but I don't want to break Carl's heart by saying that I don't love him after all." she said miserably.

"Nobody wants that, Di." Nan said warmly " _You_ don't want to say that either. But you can't allow him to kiss you or call you his 'sweetheart' if inside, you feel very uncomfortable with that."

Di looked up at her twin with disbelief "I woulnd't think that you would agree with me so easily." she admitted and Nan chuckled.

"I _know_ , I can't quite believe in what I'm saying right now." she agreed with her "But if it makes you so unhappy and so stressed all the time, then that's what you have to do. You have to tell Carl."

"Maybe give it some more time though." Una added quickly "Prepare what you're going to say. You know that Carl might play a soldier but he might also start crying." her eyes turned a bit gloomy "You have to be prepared for everything Di." she said softly.

Di nodded slowly "You're right." she said "You're both right." and she put her arms around Nan and Una. Oh, how much she wished she _wasn't_ born a Diana Blythe!

* * *

"Isn't it a bit too cold for a walk, Di?" Carl asked his 'sweetheart' while they both started their arm-in-arm walk across the Rainbow Valley, while the whole world around them was covered in snow and eternal beauty was enveloping them both.

Di's cheeks were red from the cold air but she smiled at him nonetheless "If we would always have an excuse not to take a walk, whether it's weather or something completely different, we would never go outside, Carl." she said and Carl smiled back at her, his own cheeks flushing crimson.

But Di wouldn't take a walk that day, not if she didn't decide that she would tell Carl that she doesn't love him "in that way" on that particular day. She made up her mind three days earlier, she talked it all over with her Mother, with her Father and with both Nan and Una and she knew exactly what she wanted to tell him, and she thought that she was prepared for Carl's reaction. She was wrong, but she didn't know it _yet_.

"You are very right." Carl agreed with her "Besides, if we didn't take a walk today we wouldn't be able to see Rainbow Valley so silent." he said "In the summer you can always hear the kids running around which _is_ wonderful but it is also just as wonderful to walk here, listeneing to the peacful silence like this one." his eyes were dreamy and for a second Di's heart fluttered and she looked away.

"That's true." she murmured blankly "Listen, Carl…" she began and Carl's eyes found hers.

She stopped because she wanted to remember Carl's eyes being so full of life, and full of… happiness, before she would tell… him… that… For a second she thought that she couldn't do it, not to him, not to herself, she _couldn't_! But she _had_ to. "Di, are you feeling alright? You look quite weak." Carl said to her worriedly, his arms placed on her shoulders.

Di shook her head "No, I'm not alright Carl." she murmured "I… have to tell you something which isn't an easy thing to say at all." she blinked several times.

Carl seemed to look confused for a second but then something in his head clicked and he knew what Di meant and what she was about to say. His eyes got blurry, his smile diappeared and his red cheeks turned suddenly pink "You don't love me." he said for her, his voice hardly a whisper "That's what you wanted to tell me, isn't it?".

Di was surprised that he knew almost right away what she wanted to say to him but she was relieved that she didn't have to say those few painful words herself. Her eyes got teary and she reached for Carl's hands and squeezed them hard "I am _so_ sorry, Carl." she whispered, her voice trembling "You can't imagine how I'm feelling right now."

Carl chuckled bitterly "I think I can imagine." he said "Di, is that how you've felt all along?" he asked her sheepishly.

"I wish I could say that it wasn't." she whispered back, her cheeks blushing.

Carl sighed sadly "I should have known." he said to more himself than to Di "I could see in your eyes that something was wrong but my stupid heart was always playing tricks on me and I was thinking to myself that I'm just imagining things." he looked at Di again and kissed her hands "I wish you told me earlier Di. But then… Maybe I wish you didn't tell me at all." his eyes were somewhere far away.

Di gulped and for a second she thought that Carl shouldn't have said that last sentence and that he knew that he would hurt her by saying a thing like that but then she turned very understanding towards him and felt even more guilty over the whole situation _she_ caused "Please, Carl, can we still be friends, even though… _this_ happened?" she asked him, almost begged him.

Carl looked at her for a second without saying a word or moving an inch and for a moment, which was a pure torture to Di, she thought he would refuse her but then he grinned at her, a broken grin which hurt her more even if he didn't grin at her at all "Of course we can." he replied softly "I wouldn't have enough heart or soul left if we would drift apart like we once did."

And so Carl and Di continued their walk but it didn't last very long because they were both tired, or so they said to each other when Carl walked Di back to Ingleside and turned the other way to go back to his own home. In fact they weren't tired at all, they were just in real need of crying into their own pillows for the rest of the afternoon.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter XXII**

Dear Diary,

I am beginning to think that New Year's wishes are as overrated as the number of "I love you"s I said to both Robert and Carl over the past few years. At the beginning of the year 1926, I wished for this year to be the best year of my entire life, and athough I wrote here that I highly doubted it, I actually believed in it with all my heart.

It is not a great month, March, I mean. It's been a few weeks since I told Carl that I didn't love him, and our relationship got really damaged because of that, as I thought it would. My heart is aching incredibly! My heart is bleeding at the very thought of me going for a walk with Carl to Rainbow Valley in an hour's time. It shouldn't be like this, I should be excited to see him, but I'm not excited at all, I'm terrfied and just… I really _don't_ want to see _this_ look in his eyes, I really don't and I see this look every single time we meet, even though he'll grin at me or kiss me on the cheek, and although it all feels quite natural and as it always used to, it's not.

We don't spend hours walking up and down between the trees, laughing, singing and even sometimes dancing between the branches. We don't even talk about… I don't even know _what_ we really talk about these days. I ask Carl how's school, he asks me how are my painting lessons going, I tell him some funny remarks my students made last week, he tells me his students's funny remarks, then we ask each other when we will meet again and then well, we part our ways.

It's so hard. I talked about it with both of my parents and they both shared _this_ glance, this long, knowing glance all of us Blythe children know from early years of our childhood. I know that the turn of events of my relationship with Carl _is_ simmilar to my parents's love story, but I'm sure that it won't end as happily as it ended up for them, besides this story is _different_ , it's very different actually, and we are, after all, Diana Blythe and Thomas Meredith and not Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe.

But Mother is, like always, very understanding and loving and she never gets tired (or maybe she does?) of me talking with her about my situation with Carl. She says that if I feel that's the right way, then everything is fine with the world but I don't _know_ if that's right or not and that's the very problem.

Father always tries to make me laugh, just like Jem does, or Ken or even Jerry or Shirley. They all know what happened of course, everyone from our families does but that was inevitable, so what can I do? Nan is very understanding although she _did_ sigh and because we've spoken twinish since we were born, I know that she was disappointed over the whole sitation and how it turned out. Una was different, she didn't sigh or anything like that, she openly said that she wished something else entirely happened, but she said that she was on my side for not going any further into this relationship so that we both wouldn't get even more hurt, and that was just exactly what my parents said too. And then Dad winked at me and whispered into my ear that deep underneath he's happy that his "little" girl will stay at home for a bit longer. And I have a feeling she'll stay _forever_.

But I should really stop writing now, because I have to go and meet Carl in Rainbow Valley in half an hour and there's still some more marking to do for my student of a peculiar name such as Calixta Armenio, who is simply the most adorable girl of ten years of age, who loves algebra just as much as I hate it.

Yours,

Di Blythe

* * *

The marking was done and Di was now standing under the White Lady, playing with her gloves and listening to the wind blowing next to her. Suddenly, the wind got under the branches of White Lady and almost blew Di's hat off. She put her hand quickly on her head in order to stop the hat from blowing away and she suddenly felt her hair on her arms to stand. Her heart started to pound faster, her eyes got wider, her cheeks started to burn... _what_ was happening?

Di put her hands on her cheeks "Something happened." she whispered in horror to herself "Something _must_ have happened." she repeated and then something, she would later call this 'something' a destiny, told her to go to the Manse.

She didn't go, she _ran_ instead. Her hat and her gloves were put very far from neatly into the pockets of her coat. She didn't think of anything while she ran, she only felt the prayer surround her like the morning fog, and she prayed that _nothing_ happened although she knew that something clearly did happen. Di reached the Manse and she knocked furiously on the door. No one answered. She gave a little cry "Oh, God, _what_ has happened?" she asked the clouds above her.

She looked around, where should she go? Should she come back to Ingleside? To Rainbow Valley because maybe Carl came there and was waiting for her? Maybe she was just imagining things? "Di!" Rosemary Meredith shouted out to the red-headed woman standing on her doorstep "Oh, _dear_ Anne's girl!" she breathed out, her face wet and pale.

Di's heart stopped beating, she knew that it did and it seemed as if she couldn't hear anything that Rosemary and John Meredith told her with those frightened voices, terrified eyes and wet cheeks. "Carl… An accident… Car is entirely crushed… Hospital… Critical condition…" was all Di could actually hear.

"Will… he… live?" she breathed out, her voice not hers at all.

"We don't know, dear." Rosemary said again, her voice shaking.

"But we still have hope." John added as calmly as he could while placing his arm around his wife's shoulders.

"I have to go home… and tell parents." Di said eventually and kissed both John and Rosemary on their cheeks. She decided to run back to Rainbow Valley instead of Ingleside.

When she got there, she fell on the wet grass, her eyes and her nose red from weeping, her curls in a total mess, her hands, no, her whole body trembling as if someone was strangling her. "Oh, it _can't_ be!" she sobbed, her tears falling on the grass "It can't! Oh, Carl, Carl, _Carl_! He was driving here, to meet _me_! Oh, God!" she put her hands in the air "Please save him! _Please_! He didn't do anything wrong! Save him for… for…" suddenly tears started to fall down Di's cheeks like little waterfalls although she stopped shaking and her eyes got brighter, her eyes got _alive_ , more alive than they were in months, and to Di those months were like years "I _love_ him." she breathed out.

She _did_! She did love him, she loved him ever since… ever since… She _always_ loved him! How could she be so blind? How could she ever think otherwise? How could she not see that the story of her parents was repeating itself all over again, thirty years later? How could she not _feel_ it? It was so obvious now, how they always talked about everything, how they used to have those picnics in Rainbow Valley, how they always used to feel like children together, or sometimes so much like adults. How she trusted him with her own life! She never trusted Robert in that way, she realised. How could she not see it all when it was all as plain and simple as that it was the tenth of March that day?

Then realisation dawned on her again. Carl was in an accident, a horrible, serious accident. He was in a hospital, in a _critical_ condition, she didn't know if he would live to hear her say those three perfect, entirely _not_ overrated words. "I must go to him." she stood up abruptly, her eyes sparkling with fear, hope, happiness, love and life "I won't make the same mistake as my Mother did. I _will_ go to him now."

And she started running back to Ingleside as a new red-headed Di, Di who had just opened her own Book of Revelation and was not afraid to read it.

* * *

"What do you mean I can't go in and see him?" Di burst out when the nurse standing in front of her stood right between Di and the door which would eventually lead her to Carl's room.

When Di reached Ingleside she realised that everyone was gone, Dr Blythe was as usual on the call, Anne and Susan went to Faith's and Jem's house, and so all Di could do was to take a bike standing next to her at the verandah and cycle all the way to the hospital where Carl was. She did just that, even though it was pouring from the sky above. If someone were to paint Di's mood in that moment, he or she would agree that the rain pouring on her own self was a perfect way to express it.

When Di eventually got to the hospital, she was soaked, her boots and the end of her dress along with her coat were dipped in the mud and she looked simply miserable, without even looking at her face. Her eyes were swimming in tears and fear, her lips were trembling and they were bright red and her hands were very cold. All Di could think about was the condition in which Carl was in.

"I'm sorry, Miss, but if you are not a relative then you are not allowed to see Mr Meredith." the nurse replied gently, with a hint of annoyance in her tone.

Di's face turned red to the tips of her hair "Please, I just want to _see_ him." she said pleadingly.

The nurse sighed softly "I'm sorry, Miss, but I can't allow it." she said.

"Could you at least tell me what happened? What was the accident? And what about his injuries? When did this accident even happen?" Di asked her desperately, her hands waving in the air "I really don't know _anything_ but I want to know _everything_."

The nurse looked around as if to check if anyone was watching her and bent her head towards Di "The accident happened three hours ago." she whispered hurriedly "We're not exactly sure how it happened but all we know is that Mr Meredith was injured quite badly. He has two broken ribs, his head is bandaged, and he lost quite a lot of blood."

"Is… Is he going to be fine?" Di whispered hopefully.

"We aren't sure, Miss." the nurse replied in a matter-of-fact tone "You should go home, I think." she looked at Di worriedly.

Di stood as if she was paralysed, that was _not_ what she thought she would hear. Not sure whether he'll be fine? It was just a nightmare! And she couldn't see him even for a second! She was angry, horrified, nervous, afraid and very… tired all of a sudden. She sinked into the nearest chair and put her hands on her cheeks in despair "I'm not going home." she said decidedly "I am staying here."

The nurse sat beside her and put her hand on her shoulder "You can stay here as long as you want Miss, but you won't be allowed into the patient's room." she said and in that very moment, for the first time in Di's life, she felt the urge to slap a _nurse_ across her face as hard as she could.

But she couldn't do it, and she didn't do it athough she really wanted to. Di stayed in that chair for another three hours until her parents came along with John and Rosemary. Somehow, Di would never rememeber how, but her parents and ever Mr and Mrs Meredith convinced her to go home. Her mind was blank and her head was burning. She didn't have enough energy to tell her parents about her own Book of Revelation but when she was at the back seat of the car, she could see and feel that she needn't to tell them, they already knew and were smiling at her knowingly, and pityingly but with understanding in their eyes.

Anne put her daughter to her bed, as if she was ten years old again, and Susan made her warm tea. As soon as Di's head touched the pillow she fell asleep and didn't wake up until midday the next day, little did she know that that day would be a day which would change her life.

* * *

Di woke up to the telephone ringing from downstairs. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and sat on her bed really slowly. "Good grief, I really do have a headache." she murmured to herself and then, suddenly, she remembered what happened the day before and the headache was at the very back of her thoughts. She jumped from her bed, dressed quicker than she ever had in her life and ran downstairs just to find her Mother sitting in the kitchen, as if she was waiting for her, with a smile on her face "Darling, I have good news." she told her immediately.

Di took Anne's hands in hers, her heart was jumping up and down and her eyes were twinkling "Yes? _Yes_?" she said nervously.

"Carl got better over the night." Anne replied cheerfully "Rosemary just called us to tell us the news. He's awake now." she squeezed Di's hands tightly, giving her a hidden message, only for her daughter to understand.

Di's lips formed into the brightest smile and she kissed her Mother on both cheeks and on a forehead, she ran to Susan who was cooking nearby and kissed her cheeks too "Oh, I will go to him _now_! And I don't care if they will let me in or _not_! I _will_ find a way!" she exclaimed and quickly went deeper into the hall to find her shoes.

"But, Di dear, you didn't have any breakfast!" Susan said, hardly thinking that it's possible to exit the house without eating a breakfast.

"I don't need breakfast, Susan." Di replied joyfully as she was putting a hat on her head.

"A heart of a woman who opened her Book of Revelation the day before, doesn't need any meal at all." Anne said, her gray eyes shining "Go to him, sweetheart." she winked at her daughter and Di smiled at her knowingly before running out of the house as the happiest person in the whole world.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter XXIII**

In the years to come when Di would come to think of that particular day, she would think of herself as a complete idiot and a lunatic. She didn't have any breakfast, her hair was hardly touched by a hair brush, her dress was the dress she wore three times already during that week, and only God knew why she put on those pink gloves which didn't go with her outfit on that day _at all_.

But she didn't care in that moment, she didn't even look in the mirror before she stormed out of Inglside and made her way to the hospital. She was the happiest person alive, she felt as if she could finally _breathe_. She finally knew why she felt so… tight in her chest for all those long months of her heart's and soul's misery and she felt so relieved that she eventually found out why.

But the greatest joy in her life in that moment was the improvement of Carl's health. Oh, thank God she had such a headache the day before, a headache which enabled her to sleep during the night. So that must have been how her Mother felt when she heard that Father "got de turn". It was a wonderful feeling, a feeling a butterfly must get when it escapes its pod and realises that it has beautiful wings.

Di asked a nurse, a different one from the nurse from the day before, whether she could check on Carl Meredith or rather Mr Thomas Meredith. The nurse was tough and she declined, causing Di's face to turn positively crimson from fury. Di stormed out from the reception, outside and started to walk up and down. No, she _wouldn't_ give up, she would _not_! Not when Carl was better, and awake, and ready to hear her say that she loved him after all of those years of him waiting for her so patiently.

Suddenly, Di's mind clicked and she looked up and saw a wall full of windows. Which one could be the Carl's window…? She must be _mad_! But that was the only way. Di knew the hospital quite well, it was an old hospital and she spent there many hours when Walter was sick with typhoid all those years ago. It was more than ten years earlier the last time she was there, but she wouldn't forget any of the halls, any of the rooms she looked in, just to keep her mind off the critical state her brother was in.

But which one was _Carl_ 's room? Oh! She knew! Di clasped her hands together and squeaked like a little girl. She remembered what Rosemary said the day before, when Di was sitting very still on the chair for the three hours while waiting for the nurse to finally allow her into the room where Carl was in, Rosemary said that Carl's room was on the west side, room number thirty four.

Di looked more to the left and saw the window she knew, it was the room next to the room where Walter was put in all those ten years earlier. How could she not know where it was? Di made her way to the gutter and looked around her just to check if someone would be there to witness her committing a crime. But _was_ it a crime? she thought. Was it really? But she decided that she didn't really care, when she put her both hands on the gutter and held on tightly.

Even to the very day when she was telling her own grandchildren and great-grandchildren about that night, she didn't know how she did it, how she managed to climb two storeys high without looking down even once, without any fear. All she knew was that she was _so_ proud of herself, and so very nervous to tell Carl those three perfect words when she reached the window of his room.

The window was fortunately slightly opened and Di slipped inside as quietly as a cat would do it. "A miracle." she breathed out happily, forgetting entirely that Carl himself was lying in his bed just next to her, with his eyes opened.

"Di?" a weak voice filled the whole room and Di jumped before turning her head to the man she loved.

"Oh, Carl! _Carl_!" she gasped and started kissing him all over his face, his bruised cheeks, his bandaged head, his blind eye and the eye which was observing her every move. She omitted his lips of course, she couldn't be too brave to kiss them just yet. "Are you alright? Oh, Carl I thought you wouldn't make it!" she said through her tears.

Carl looked at her in disbelief. He didn't look very pleasantly of course. His head was in a bandage, his cheeks were quite purple, his lips were scarred, and his hands were a bit red, but his eyes were just the same and to Di he was the most handsome man she had ever seen, even in that very second "Di… Did you… just _climb_ here?" he asked her slowly, his voice sounding a little tired.

Di chuckled then "Yes, I did." she said "I don't know how, Carl, I don't know but the nurses wouldn't let me in." she explained as if it was something obvious to do.

Carl's lips formed into a smile and his chest shook, as if he was laughing inside but was to weak to laugh outloud "You are ridiculously wonderful." he whispered tenderly and his hand reached Di's.

Di squeezed it hard and smiled at him, like never before. Di didn't say a word but Carl knew it, he saw it and he _felt_ it. He knew it before she said it and his eyes turned teary "Carl, I know it took me a long time. I know that I've been a torture to you, but believe me I was a torture to _myself_ as well." she said passionately "But it's better for me to realise now or never so I suppose it's still not too late. I _hope_." she sighed heavily but smiled at him nonetheless "I love you, you crazy bugs-friend." she chuckled.

Carl looked at her meaningfully and it was as if he just received a new portion of energy. He put his hand on Di's back and pulled her closer, so that their foreheads were touching "Do you want me to kiss you?" he whispered to her, his eyes laughing impishly.

"Yes." she whispered back, a soft grin on her lips.

"Then you have to first agree with me on something." he whispered again, more seriously.

"Anything." she murmured tenderly.

"Diana Blythe, I will kiss you if you'll agree to become my wife." Carl said eventually and his hand wondered off to her cheek and he caressed it gently.

"Then you could have kissed me even yesterday." Di whispered to his ear and they both chuckled softly.

"I should have done it years ago." he said "But as you said, better now or never." and he kissed her, eventually, the very first kiss they both felt was _right_. What both Carl and Di didn't realise was that a bunch of nurses surrounded near the door of the room thirty four and were clapping and cheering behind the door, while the two of them were writing the very first chapter of their own book, a book called "Life".

* * *

 _Two months later_

"Next year this time, you will become Mrs Meredith. How does it feel like?" Carl squeezed Di's hand as they walked slowly together across the bright Rainbow Valley which was in its centre of blossoming.

Di's eyes shone in this special new twinkling way when her eyes met Carl's and she smiled at him gently "Quite extraordinary." she whispered and then took his arm in hers "Do you think you'll manage me as a wife? This temper of a redhead and a 'Blythe', and all the others?" she asked her husband-to-be with laughter in her voice.

Carl chuckled and kissed her forehead tenderly "I think that I won't manage you as my wife." he said and then laughed again, his laughter alive and clear "Don't look at me like that, Di! What I mean is that I won't be able to tame you, but that's one of the many things I love about you." he said and Di's cheeks flushed with red, making Carl to grin at her again "And the temper of a redhead and a 'Blythe' are the two features I love very dearly." he added.

Di chuckled "I will never believe that you actually like my hair so much." she said.

Carl nudged her at the side "Di, how can I _not_ love this hair of yours?" he asked her with a smile on his lips "Because of your red hair, I can easily spot you out of the crowd full of women with brown, black or blonde hair. Your hair and of course your ten frecles which I love to spend my time counting," that's where Di laughed at him again "-and your eyes which are green when you're happy or excited, and are gray when the sun shines more brightly or when a sudden blow of wind messes your hair."

Di looked deeply into his eyes and put her head on his strong shoulder "Nobody knows me more than you do, I think." she said softly.

"I hope that it's true." Carl replied and sighed with pity "Robert Keats doesn't know what he lost." he said.

Di looked at Carl again "Oh, don't you bring Robert into this." she waved her hands "It was all my fault and that's all we should say about it." she said and shook her head with embarrassment over what happened a year earlier.

Carl squeezed her shoulder assuringly "That wasn't anyone's fault, Di." he said "Besides if this split between you didn't happen, we wouldn't be engaged right now." he smiled joyfully.

Di smiled back at him "That is true." she said and kissed his cheek.

"Do you think that you'll be happy in Boston?" he asked her suddenly, his eyes full of worry all of a sudden.

"Carl, dear," she replied softly "-I will be happy anywhere _you_ 'll go."

Carl smiled with relief "I really hope so." he said readily "This three year contract at the university will give me lots of experience and who knows maybe we will even prefer to live in Boston rather than in the old Glen?" he asked and after a few seconds when the two of them looked in each other's eyes, they said in unison "Nooo." and laughed again.

They continued walking, their fingers interlaced together and their heads touching each other. The wind blew and blew and it felt almost like summer, but with the lightness of spring being still reconisable in the air. Di sighed lightly and Carl looked down at her "What is it?" he asked.

"I just never thought that a person could be so happy." she whispered tenderly, her green happy eyes looking directly into Carl's dark blue ones "I've never thought I could and would love a man a much as I love you in this very second."

Carl kissed her nose "I'm glad that you came to this conclusion after such a long time." he said and Di chuckled quietly "But Diana Ruby Blythe, there's one thing you don't know."

"And what is that?" she asked him with interest in her voice.

"You don't know that I love you even more than you can possibly imagine." he whispered mysteriously into her ear and they smiled at each other, in their own familiar way.

"I don't think that's true, but I won't argue with you." she replied sweetly and Carl sighed contentedly.

"Good, because there's nothing to question about _that_." and then he placed his hands on her cheeks and looked into her beautiful green shining eyes again "But I can promise you one thing and that is that I will do everything in my power to make you at least half as happy as I am now in this moment." he said, his eyes sparkling.

Di grinned at him cheerfully "You don't have to try very hard." she whispered "Because you are already a master of making me happy." and Di put her hands around his neck and allowed Carl to kiss her under the White Lady.

Suddenly, all of the Blythe, Meredith and Ford children flooded the Rainbow Valley with laughter and sweet childish screamings of the Indians and the sodiers. But the spell for Di and Carl wasn't broken at all, it grew even stronger. For a second Di thought that she could hear two more children laughing, a laughter different to the laughter of Gilly, Julia, Walt or Merry. Then she heard a soft distant laughter of a boy she would always love, a boy with black curls on his head and twinkling gray eyes.

Di tip toed to wrap her arms around Carl's neck and Carl wraped his arms around her waist and started to twirl her around. And then she laughed, he laughed, the children around them laughed, and for the first time in her life, Diana of the Rainbow Valley felt, _really_ felt, and was so sure and right too, that everything in the end was right with the world, no matter how many things suggest otherwise. Di realised in that moment that time didn't matter after all, it was the people around her that mattered the most and when Carl put her down and started to dance a little foxtrot with Rose, Di knew that she felt and that she would feel for the years to come something as wonderful as the word sounds by itself. She was… _happy_.

 ** _THE END_**

 **And there we go, my third story is finished! I am so thankful to all of you, to all my readers, reviewers, people who followed and favourited my story, I thank you _all_ (special thanks go to: Kim Blythe, Alinyaalethia, AvonleaBlythe, hecalledmecarrots and IrishPrincess for reviewing) :) **

**Now, I am going to continue with writing and I shall post a first chapter to my new story in around two weeks time. I know that I've already written about Anne's and Gilbert's grandchildren (go to "Julia of the Island" if you'd like to take a look at this story) but somehow I don't feel completely content with those series and because those two stories were the first ones I've ever written, I learnt a lot from writing them. That's why when an idea about a _different_ generation of Anne's grandchildren popped into my head, I just felt that I should write it down. So expect the first chapter of "Hester of Golden Bells" in two weeks time ;)**

 **Once again, thank you all, and see you all soon! - Bathsheba Blythe**


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